Origin: An Odyssey in Time
by Trigunskitty
Summary: AU:One would expect a beta-tester's life to be busy. Take Mikan Sakura and her online friends. They have hit it off within the Gaming Community-prolific gamers, strong MeTube channels, etc. VRGE, an alternative virtual reality game studio, cracked the code to virtual gaming. Needing beta-testers, VRGE invites gamers around the nation. With game card in hand, Mikan enters in Origin.
1. Prologue

Hi guys! Wow, it's been a LONG time since I updated anything on this site! (So many stories left unfinished! :( Ahhhhh) I hope everyone had a fun New Years, and I hope you enjoy this little mixture I randomly wrote. As always, I don't own Gakuen Alice. They belong to their rightful owner Tachibana Higuchi! Enjoy!

* * *

Prologue

* * *

VRGE had cracked the code many gaming studios failed to accomplish. Alternative Reality Gaming-ARG for short. The first game introduced a few years prior held promise to all those who wanted to delve into this new series. It was simplistic in nature, a scavenger hunt set in a temple. The players had thirty minutes to find all the clues to win the game. In a way-it was what helped establish the Escape the Room games that VRGE became famous for.

The games released by the company were not normal by any means-one couldn't buy it for their console or personal use. These games were purely given to facilities designed for virtual reality settings. These places became known as the AVR Arcades, where people reserved time slots to play.

Practically overnight, VRGE had become one of the top selling game industries within the nation. And continued.

Which is what brought them to this moment. The game that they had envisioned at the beginning of the company. Origin, the AVR game that transcended time. The characters within the story didn't have a set period to finish the game to win. No-this game had been designed to become the first AVR console system for home usage. Where players could save their game, and exit at any time. Just as one would do in the Tesdiny, Kalo, or Vinyl Vantasies-one could simply save and turn it off for another day.

Previous VRGE games did not allow for saving-which solved their major dilemma within the gaming world. Critics lined up to lay faults with the system, so VRGE stepped it up. By developing a personal gaming unit that could be used at home, it broke all the rules in gaming. And the trick to this was sleeping.

One would place the VR console on themselves while they were sleeping, and they'd play within the game as they dreamed. There would be no constraints for space, or body movement. Using the console as one slept would enable the player to venture into an open-ended world that had no boundaries.

One could see why this game would peak the interest of any game player.

Before the system could be released to the public, the company had to beta-test their game. It was to clean up the minor bug issues and programming, and only a few selected beta testers were chosen. Some of them were within their twenties, other were peaking near the age of thirty.

* * *

With VRGE's newest game having leaked over the web, the forums and chatrooms were ablaze. For one particular gamer's group in the local area, there's were also buzzing.

 ** _Kuroneko entered the chatroom..._**

 ** _Kuroneko is typing..._**

 ** _EagleEye entered the chatroom..._**

 _ **Kuroneko:** Anyone else receive an invitation with a game card?_

 ** _Kuroneko posted a picture._**

 ** _EagleEye is typing..._**

 _ **EagleEye:** You got the same thing as I did. Look here..._

 ** _EagleEye posted a picture._**

 ** _Cool_Blue_Sky entered the chatroom..._**

 ** _Kuroneko is typing..._**

 ** _EagleEye is typing..._**

 _ **Kuroneko:** Same color card-your personal username is on there._

 _ **EagleEye:** Did Cool_Blue_Sky get one as well?_

 ** _Cool_Blue_Sky is typing..._**

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** Good evening. Yes._

 ** _Kuroneko is typing..._**

 _ **EagleEye:** Errrr_

 _ **Kuroneko:** I knew it, Cool_Blue_Sky is training to become a secret undercover agent. Harold* would be pleased._

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** Haha. I was answering the boorish and repetitive question about the game card. Stupid._

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** Also, please leave Harold* out of it-he's happily solving things in ReSolve._

 _ **EagleEye:** Lol_

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** My brother confirmed that VRGE has finally created a mobile (?) AVR game console._

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** I'll go and see what it's about._

 ** _Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r entered the chatroom..._**

 _ **Kuroneko:** So this invite is the real deal then? I suppose I can go to pay my respects to ReSolve's game creator. I always love a good puzzle game._

 ** _Cool_Blue_Sky is typing..._**

 _ **EagleEye:** Woah, shots fired!_

 _ **Kuroneko:** Harold* solves riddles and clues, piecing together the evidence to solve his wife's murder. Ergo, puzzle game._

 _ **Cool Blue Sky:** _

_One) ReSolve is about Harold's* obsession to get over his wife's murder by finding her murderer._

 _Two) Harold* searches for clues that trigger events that happen around the city to help him find the murderer._

 _Three) His choices tree branches into many plot points to the end. There isn't just one ending and voila, its the end._

 _Four) Harold* chooses what happens to him. How does that make it a puzzle game Kuro?_

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** It's lively as usual._

 _ **EagleEye:** If Cool_Blue_Sky and Kuroneko aren't at each other's throats, it'd be too quiet._

 _ **Kuroneko:** Harold* has to piece together the missing pieces of evidence to find peace in his life. Sounds like a puzzle to me if anything._

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** Did Kuroneko pun?_

 _ **EagleEye:** OMG_

 ** _Cool_Blue_Sky is typing..._**

 _ **Kuroneko:** That was hard to set up._

 _ **EagleEye:** LOLOL_

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** Ha_

 _ **EagleEye:** I'd be terrified of that "Ha"._

 _ **Kuroneko:** Hn._

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** For the record, Kuro punned first today. He has to wear the pun of shame._

 _ **EagleEye:** I'll bring it to the VRGE company house LOL_

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** RelicPetals will be pleased she won't have to wear the pun of shame next._

 _ **Kuroneko:** Well, I did lose to her during that last speed run. I had to take the fall somewhere._

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r** : OOOOHHHHH, did you guys get an invite to VRGE?!_

 ** _Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r posted a picture._**

 _ **EagleEye:** WOW_

 _ **EagleEye:** Did you not see the long chat about VRGE above?_

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** I don't read what's already past-too long to read._

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** It took me ten seconds to read what they posted._

 _ **Kuroneko:** Shadow's lazy, is what he's getting at._

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** EXACTLY!_

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** I don't think you should be proud of yourself._

 _ **EagleEye:** Do we know if RelicPetals, K0k0D3sNuts, or P3rms4Ev got the invite?_

 _ **Kuroneko:** Hang on, let me text Petals._

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** OOOoooooooooo Are we on texting terms now?_

 _ **Kuroneko:** I have your number, don't I?_

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** Why don't you text meeeeeeeeee T_T_

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky** : Because you're not the one he's interested in._

 _ **EagleEye** : Cool_Blue_Sky is savage today._

 _ **Kuroneko:** She said she'll be on in five minutes. She just got off from work._

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** I see how it is... TT_TT_

 ** _RelicPetals entered the chatroom..._**

 _ **EagleEye** : Did you get an invite too?_

 ** _RelicPetals is typing..._**

 _ **RelicPetals:** I'm checking the mail as we speak._

 ** _RelicPetals posted a picture._**

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** How often do you check your mail? There's over 50 envelopes there!_

 _ **Kuroneko:** I hope those aren't credit card bills._

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** Looks like Spam._

 _ **EagleEye:** RelicPetals, how on earth did you accumulate that much mail?_

 _ **RelicPetals:** I got busy._

 _ **Kuroneko** : To check the mail? It takes like five seconds._

 _ **RelicPetals** : I hate going outside after I'm done working. And plus...it's cold._

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** Solution: Jacket_

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** LOLOLOLOLOL XD_

 _ **Kuroneko:** Did you find the envelope for VRGE yet?_

 _ **RelicPetals:** FOUND IT!_

 ** _RelicPetals posted a picture._**

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** Is everyone's purple? Mine is purple as well._

 ** _K0k0D3sNuts entered the chatroom..._**

 ** _K0k0D3sNuts is typing..._**

 _ **RelicPetals:** I wonder why VRGE is inviting me of all people to go?_

 _ **EagleEye:** You're famous as a gamer, you do indie voice acting for Dream games, OH and forgot to mention you have a rockin' Metube channel._

 _ **K0k0D3sNuts:** WHY DIDN"T I GET AN INVITEEEEEEE!_

 _ **Kuroneko:** What EagleEye said._

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** Smooth. RelicPetals, you also smoked Kuro in that speed run the other day. Don't sell yourself short. Also K0k0D3sNuts turn off the capslock._

 _ **Kuroneko:** Okay, let's not lay it in thick._

 ** _K0k0D3sNuts posted a picture._**

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** Don't post your pouty face-did you check your mail recently?_

 _ **K0k0D3sNuts:** I did check my email but I got nothing from VRGE._

 ** _Cool_Blue_Sky is typing..._**

 ** _Kuroneko is typing..._**

 ** _Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r is typing..._**

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** My brain hurts._

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** K0k0, don't be a Petals. When was the last time you checked your MAILBOX?_

 _ **Kuroneko:** I bet my pre-bought copy of Tesdiny III that his mail will be over 50 envelopes._

 _ **EagleEye:** You're on!_

 _ **RelicPetals:** Don't make fun of my pile! I have a reason why, K0k0 just forgets postage exists._

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** Pictures of the bet or it's invalid!_

 ** _K0k0D3sNuts is typing..._**

 _ **K0k0D3sNuts:** OMGGGG_

 ** _K0k0D3sNuts posted a picture._**

 _ **K0k0D3sNuts:** DO YOU SEE HOW MUCH SHIT WAS IN MY BOX?! IT WAS CRAMMED!_

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** Capslock. OFF._

 _ **K0k0D3sNuts:** ahhhhh i found the vrge letter_

 _ **EagleEye** : Afraid of capitalizing now?_

 _ **K0k0D3sNuts:** maybe_

 _ **RelicPetals:** So, what is the plan? Are we meeting there on the specified date? It's this Friday morning right?_

 _ **Kuroneko** : We could meet for the test and then have a D&D night at Shadow's. It's been a while since our last campaign._

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky** : Good idea. I can bring the crab brains. :)_

 _ **RelicPetals** : Lol, only you'd eat them Sky._

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** What's not to love about Crab Brains?_

 _ **K0k0D3sNuts:** why is my card green? everyone has purple cards except for me._

 ** _P3rms4Ev entered the chatroom._**

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** Maybe your card got sent back due to: "post box filled to the max error" and they sent a "maybe he'll come if he checks" card._

 _ **P3rms4Ev:** No, I got green as well._

 ** _P3rms4Ev posted a picture._**

 _ **RelicPetals:** Your nails are pretty as ever dahhhhling. ;)_

 _ **P3rms4Ev:** Thx dahhhhhling ;) I still need to do yours._

 _ **EagleEye:** Perhaps VRGE color cooridnated their cards for groups? It could be like they do in the Escape the Room Arcades._

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** VRGE has caught our attention, let's see if they can keep it._

 _ **K0k0D3sNuts:** Well, they have mine-that's for sure._

 _ **Kuroneko:** Gameplan- We all assemble by 9:30 am at the entrance?_

 _ **P3rms4Ev:** I have a hair appointment at 7:30 that day-I'll just head over after I'm done._

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r** : I have work overnight until 8:00 am, so I'll also head over there early as well. Nothing like pulling an all nighter! WOOOOOO_

 _ **Cool_Blue_Sky:** It's not like you stayed up for 36 hours busting through Vinyl Vantasy XV._

 _ **Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r:** Time is of no consequence when there are quests to finish. Not to mention lots of stabby stab, sword changing tricks, with teleportin'._

 _ **EagleEye:** We all agree to going then? Okay, see you Friday!_

 _ **Kuroneko:** Hn._

* * *

Harold* is the main character to Hotaru's game ReSolve. Thus the reason for the asterick.

AVR: Alternative Virtual Reality

"Vales of" Series, Tesdiny, and Legion Lung III are knockoffs of the original games. I'm sure you know which ones they are referring to. I just didn't want to exclaim a copyright further. But regardless, I don't own those games either.

I hope you all enjoyed the prologue.

TK is out.


	2. VRGE

For more information about the story:

This is an **AU Gakuen Alice fanfiction**. The original author is Tachibana Higuchi. Other things to make note about the game titles and studios used. I mostly sitched around the letters, but basically those games, companies, and etc etc don't belong to Trigunskitty, rather their respective Copyright users.

VRGE is something I came up with though. :D (Pronounced like verge).

To explain a bit about the written aspect of the story. If you see their usernames written throughout the story, it's because the main character in that scene (so far Mikan or Natsume) refers to their online friends by their username. It's the nicknames that they grown accustomed to calling each other, so it would not be odd for them to see each other as such. It may seem odd to us readers though.

Enjoy the story!

* * *

"Origin, huh?" The resonance of his voice rang in a slight low register, warm sounding and resolute. His ruby eyes darkened as he held the description card up for inspection. The frown had been a semi-permanent fixture upon his chiseled, handsome face. The unkempt raven hair he possessed poked at odd angles, giving him the devilish, "bed-head look but stilled rocked it" style. He worked out often, between his late night shifts and afternoon serving shifts. He preferred to keep busy, despite the crazy schedule. "I wonder what this is going to be about."

He played games for his main living, having a channel of over a million subscribers. The way he won over his viewers was not due to his dashing personality, or quick witted sarcasm; it was his diverse play style. Many MeTube gaming reviewers and professional gamers had a specific genre or specialty. His speciality was that he had no genre or specialty. He played whatever he wanted, even the occasional otome game to please his female base. And despite him not having a niche, he excelled in almost ninety percent of his games. To some, he was a video game god. To others, he was generous. He would take part in the holiday game drives where gamers from around the nation would come together and play for extended periods of time. It was during this time that they collected donations for kids around the world to afford their own games and activities. For the last two drives he helped with, before he finished his first hour of playing, he'd achieved the 100,000 dollar mark. And he was the one starting the campaign.

"I'm excited to be apart of this project myself, it's been under wraps for a long time." Another male appeared by his side and peered at the game card the raven had. His bright blonde roots shone even under the bright fluorescents above, if any of his personal fan girls were there, they'd probably swoon as well. The way his fluffy, soft tendrils of short blonde hair framed his face made him almost angelic. As luck would have it, he had been blessed with beautiful azure colored orbs, which lightened when he smiled. The slight dimples in his cheeks would appear whenever he cracked a smile, giving him that boy-next door look. He was close to the raven's height, albeit a few inches shorter.

He also had a MeTube account that catered to those in the gaming world. His speciality dealt with first person shooters, real-time strategy, and action/adventure series. Sometimes he would play the occasional Dream indie games, but merely as requests came in. He made an excellent critic to all the games he participated in. The blonde pulled out a beanie that had a piece of paper stapled to it. It read: Pun of Shame on the center.

"Did you make this after the chat room?"

"Of course! I was inspired."

Before he could reply back to the blonde's comment, a spirited hand grabbed the card out of his hand. There was no hiding the sardonic expression he gave as a bubbly, and energetic auburn about a head shorter than him had gushed over the card. She was infamous in the gaming world, for her MeTube videos and Switch channels. Having a speciality in otome, fantasy, roleplaying, virtual novels, and the occasional voice acting she was RelicPetals, AKA Mikan Sakura. Hazel eyes, light with amusement and fun, she made the room brighten with her presence. "I didn't scare you, did I, Kuroneko, EagleEye?" She giggled in contentment as the two older males rolled their eyes at their new conversation partner.

"Not particularly." EagleEye, or Ruka Nogi, remarked and nudged his raven-haired pal beside him with his elbow. "Isn't that right Kuroneko?"

Kuroneko, AKA Nastume Hyuuga, grunted. "Hn." He remembered when he first started his game MeTube channel. She was one of his first few subscribers. She also jumped into the game world because of his gameplay. Many fans speculated it was because she had a mighty crush on him, but the truth of the matter was that she was impressed with his unique gameplay. She slowed down her voice acting career to start up her own game channel as a result.

RelicPetals smiled. "When was the last time we all got together in the same room?" She flipped the game card over twice before offering to return it. Natsume's card didn't seem special, but hers wasn't special either.

"I believe it was the last Holiday Training Charity." This was one of the many donation charities they participated in together.

"Right! You owe me a coffee still Kuroneko." RelicPetals cooed ecstatically while the male in question groaned. He was hoping she'd forget about that after that much time had past. Apparently not.

"After we're done beta-testing." She noticed the beanie with the stapled "Pun of Shame" on it as well. Grabbing it from him, she reached up to place it on his head.

"If I had to wear it out to the night release of Legion Lungs III, you have to wear it during beta-testing!"

Natsume grumbled, but did not fight her off. Or the hat. It was stupid regardless. "Fine."

"Okie dokie!" RelicPetals bounced back on the balls of her feet and her heels. If EagleEye had any say in what just transpired, he would have remarked that those two were destined to date at some point. It was only a matter of the time, place, and manner in which it would happen. Natsume accepted his game card back before his attention snapped to behind them. The sound of a heeled boot clicked upon the ground.

"Cool_Blue_Sky!" RelicPetals jumped at once, realizing it was her online best friend. The newest addition to their group had raven hair but she had violet amethyst colored eyes. Her porcelain skin was fair, fairer than Snow White if they were to stand close to one another. Hotaru happened to be the shortest of the four, but her wonderful attention to detail allowed her a few extra inches thanks to her boots. Poised, calm, and determined the young lady joined their motley crew with the elegance of royalty. RelicPetals broke the royal feeling when her arms doubled over the girl's shoulders for a tight embrace. Cool_Blue_Sky accepted the hug begrudgingly and endured. It had been a while since she'd last seen the auburn. And she did promise her a hug.

Like her fellow game MeTubers, she also possessed an account. Having accrued over a million subscribers, she became famous through her sheer will power. Her videos of innovative game play, discussion and critics of any games, and tidbits of her game: ReSolve made her quite a legend.

ReSolve was a Dream Indie game she created through her programming and innovative genius. She designed the game after a detective, solve-the-crime genre. The story followed the main character who was searching for his wife's murderer. The game played like a tree-branch style, where there were many ways to reach an ending-there were many ways to reach a good, neutral, or bad ending. It's complexity and simplicity gave ReSolve an excellent score 9/10 on all gaming critic websites. The diverse story telling gave players an opportunity to see all angles of the game. They could piece together the whereabouts of the murderer, and grow with the main character as he resolved his wife's murder. Natsume, EagleEye, and RelicPetals played through the game plenty of times giving their opinions on the game to the gaming genius. She was one of the few gaming critics to actually create a successful game with the funds allotted to her from her brother's graphic design company.

"Cool_Blue_Sky, good to see you again." EagleEye acknowledged with his head in a slight bow. He respected her intellect just as much as he respected Natsume's gaming expertise.

"EagleEye, Kuroneko, and RelicPetals ... where's the others?" Cool_Blue_Sky spoke softly, her voice soft to the ears but had a bit of a stoic tone.

"They're already inside, Koko texted me." EagleEye replied, bringing up the text.

"This must be the game of the century to call us here to beta test." Cool_Blue_Sky stated. She didn't realize how many prolific gamers were all going to be in this building that day.

Natsume grunted once more. "Hn."

"Anyone been in VRGE's main hall before this?" EagleEye asked, but they all shook their heads. For the most part they remained in their rooms recording in their own personal space. Beside their other part time jobs and careers, this was the first time they had stepped foot into VRGE.

"Let's go check out the equipment we'll be using!" RelicPetals gushed. She looped her arm into Cool_Blue_Sky's and darted into the hall. Hotaru's stumbling clicks of her boots pounded as she clumsily tried to keep up with the auburn.

"Slow down stupid!" She hissed.

Natsume and EagleEye followed shortly after them, they were laid back by the whole event. Natsume remembered the first day he received his game card in the mail from VRGE-at first he thought it was a joke. But after some investigating he found out that it was no joke but an offer. He grew popular in the last few years, which VRGE wanted to use as a push into their new gaming console.

What better way to promote a gaming system than to have famous gamers, game creators, and critics play it? It would exponentially raise their sales if it turned out to be a hit.

* * *

The amount of beta testers within the room were staggering. RelicPetals, Cool_Blue_Sky, Natsume, and EagleEye walked into a threshold of people of different ages ranging from their twenties to thirties. Most of the beta testers were people they'd run into once or twice at charities or comicon's around the nation.

"Woah, Cool_Blue_Sky is here!" the group closet to the four whispered to each other as they oogled them. "Check out RelicPetals! She's pretty in person!"

"OMG, I cannot believe Kuroneko and EagleEye are here!" A gaggle of girls, ones who were most likely randomly selected from the general public with an interest in gaming, cooed. Natsume worked arduously at ignoring the pests and continuing through the throng of people.

"Is this going to start soon or what?" EagleEye turned his attention over to find one of the famous gaming critics on the Switch Network ambling over to them. His trademark beanie stretched over his matted, raven hair, his blue eyes accented by the one star tattoo upon his upper left cheekbone. He was taller than Natsume by at least a head, and was proud to show his height.

Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r, AKA Tsubasa Andou reached them to flash his player card. The purple card was the same color as their own. "Are you as excited as I am?"

Cool_Blue_Sky and RelicPetals pulled out theirs. "Yup," Petals replied and smiled to her senior. He was always nice to them during their charities, except for the occasional noogie. He messed around and rough housed with the males though. While this added some flare into their events for more likes, it also caused Natsume annoyance. Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r seemed like the person who would pick dare over truth any day.

"Which means, we're the first group to get settled. After that, the other colors will get called into the rooms every thirty minutes. They don't want to overload the server with an overabundance of peeps." Cool_Blue_Sky tsked in disapproval.

"Group Purple to entrance 1." The announcement over the audio system rang into the main hall causing the buzz of activity to die down. Many of the beta testers checked their colors before either returning to their conversations or milling around.

"Looks like we're up, lets go!"

Natsume walked with their group, keeping his head level as they walked. He could feel the stares of the passerbys as he moved. In someway, this felt like a joke. He half-expected VRGE to prank them with another version of Escape the Room in less than an hour.

The purple group melded into one orderly unit by the front. There were about thirteen people standing there waiting. Some of them were prolific, others were not. Natsume kept his thoughts to himself as the door finally slid open to the sides. He could feel every eye on their group as they walked in. They were trying to get a feel for what the console looked like. Unfortunately for them, the door closed shut as soon as the last of their group entered in.

* * *

"Greetings!" The one who addressed them was none other than the VRGE entrepreneur and CEO of the company: Shoutarou Kouji. "Welcome to VRGE's game lab. You were pre-selected to test one of our newest games, Origin. Our facilities will be taking care of you during this field test." When he smiled at them, his green orbs glinted through pointed eyes. Mikan froze on the spot, as if his gaze penetrated through her. Goosebumps rose on her arms as she stared at the tall figure in the front. While he cleaned up nice in a business suit and tie, she couldn't shake the feeling that he was bad news.

Cool_Blue_Sky noticed her tension and gave her a dubious expression. "You alright?" She whispered in the auburn's ear.

Mikan stuttered. "Y-yeah-sorry, it's cold in here."

Shoutarou Kouji continued talking, as if they hadn't spoken in the middle of his introduction. "We have our programmers, psychologists, and doctors all here to keep you safe during this test. We understand that this game is new so we want to be prepared for anything that may or may not happen. Now, I will hand it over to our resident programmer, Dr. Luna Koizumi."

A tall woman with dark auburn hair, dark make up, and a sophisticated gait came up behind the CEO and introduced herself. She discussed her background in programming and how much schooling she took to get this far. She then showed them through the main projector what they would find once in Origin.

She clicked on the remote when the lights went out and a field of grassy knolls popped up. There were rubble and mechanical debris all over the grounds, but it looked peaceful enough. "This is the field you'll be taken into. It is called the Land of Time. Think of this as a tutorial grounds. You'll create your avatar within the game, and then go through some combat tutorials for whichever weapon class you chose. There are male/female choices, two different character types, fourteen weapon class types, and a variety armor to set up your avatar. The colors of your character can also be chosen through a color pickler. It will pop up when you are choosing specific areas of your avatar. Once you're in the Land of Time, you'll notice that you will have a wrist console. This will keep track of your progress and any related character's information. Any questions?"

No one raised their hand or uttered a peep.

"Nothing? Did I explain it too well?" Dr. Koizumi looked to the smug CEO standing by her. He gave her a thumbs up in response. "Excellent, alright well then we move onto-"

"I have a question." He raised his hand within the middle of the group. His ruby eyes narrowed as he siphoned through the information he just received. "You mentioned combat, is this wrist console like a controller, or will it use a keyboard for inputs? And is this a turn based simulation or in real time?"

Dr. Koizumi smiled at the question, "I would dare say that would take away from the experience! No, you'll have the weapons in hand and you will use your avatar to pilot the attack. You'll learn more in the tutorial. And as for your second question, it will be in real time! No enemies are going to sit while you ponder which way you want to slash your sword or shoot your gun."

The group of beta testers started to talk amongst each other in whispers. Some of them were good at these types of games, such as Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r, EagleEye, and Kuroneko. Others like Mikan and Cool_Blue_Sky were likely to struggle because it wasn't turn based.

"Each of you has a player card. This card contains your personal data and how you will keep your save data. Whenever you want to log out, there will be a word that you choose as your way out. You'll pick that word when you are creating your avatars. Now, if you'll follow me over to the chambers."

Dr. Koizumi and Shoutarou Kounji led the way into a bright, spacious room.

* * *

Each of them had been guided to a fluffy white bed, it was about the size of a full mattress. It had a type of awning or head rest cover the front half of the bed. When they laid down, some doctors and nurses were coming by to get medical information. Mikan had been fortunate, or unfortunate, to have a bed right where Dr. Koizumi stood. The doctor chose her as the sacrifi-volunteer to demonstrate.

"What's your name dear?" Mikan saw her manicured nails were longer than a doctors should have been. They were quite pretty though.

"RelicPetals." She blurted, her nerves shot through her as her face reddened. Dr. Koizumi blinked before realizing it was her alias.

"I meant your real name sweetie."

Mikan could hear Kuroneko's chortle, even from where he laid ten beds away. "Mikan."

"Alright, Mikan is going to insert her game card into this slot." Dr. Koizumi pointed to the open slot where it would potentially fit. Mikan followed instructions, not wanting to be called out in shame again. Her card slipped in and a screen popped up onto the awning of the bed. It displayed all her information.

Sakura, Mikan.

Dr. Koizumi placed her hand on her shoulder and eased her back down. Something about her smile didn't soothe the auburn in the slightest.

* * *

EagleEye, who laid by Natsume, gave him a bewildered stare. "Are they really going to put us to sleep?"

Natsume stared around up at the bed contraption. Perhaps this is what VRGE meant by mobile. It was a mobile bed for home usage. But that didn't explain the wrist console piece attached to the bed.

* * *

 **Chapter 1 is over**. :) I hope you all enjoyed and look forward to the next chapter.

***The ailases used are what the characters refer to their friends as. This in a way shows who is the one "piloting" or following their point of view. It may be confusing, but I'll try to not make it as confusing as possible. The only POVs coming up should be Mikan's or Natsume's.

RelicPetals = Mikan

Kuroneko = Natsume

Cool_Blue_Sky = Hotaru

EagleEye = Ruka

Sh4d0w_M4nipul4t0r = Tsubasa Andou

K0k0D3sNuts = Kokoroyome

P3rms4Ev = Sumire Shouda

Whelp, hope that helps. :) I probably won't post chapter 2 until next weekend. Enjoy.

TK out


	3. Tutorial

AN: I do not own Gakuen Alice. :)

* * *

 **Chapter 2: Tutorial**

* * *

Dr. Koizumi settled the room down again as she grabbed a square of soft fabric. She grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and squeezed it onto the swatch. "The doctors and nurses will have to attach an IV to your arm, place a heart monitor on your finger, and scan you periodically for brain waves. We are doing this to data collection and bug fixes."

Mikan bit her lip as the doctor rubbed the inside of her arm for thirty seconds straight before expertly piercing her skin with the IV. She immediately taped the needle down and covered it with a warm towel. Once everyone had been on the same page, they realized how tired they all were.

"You all probably feel fatigued, which is normal. You're being injected with something like intravenous sedation. When you're asleep, we will activate the console and you will be awake in the Land of Time. Good luck!"

Mikan struggled to keep her eyes open-her eyelids felt heavy, and her arms felt like lead. She couldn't tell her legs from her butt, and before she knew it, she fell into darkness.

Doctors came by to check on their beta testers breathing, activating consoles as they went. The beds, unbeknowst to the players, were the consoles themselves. The bed produces a wavelength to the player's brain. While they are sleeping, the REM function of the brain would intermingle with the game and create the open world. Unlike a dream where one could wake up and forget, this one would save in the specific origin of the last save spot.

Dr. Luna Koizumi hovered over Mikan Sakura's bed before activating it. She snickered as if enjoying her own personal joke.

"Enjoy the game while you can."

* * *

The instant Mikan felt the darkness surround her, she snapped her eyes wide open. There she found herself staring at a mirror. Even though she knew that she was in front of it, there was no person reflected into it.

It wasn't until she raised her hand up to touch the glass when two options appeared before her.

 **Male**

 **Female**

Mikan didn't think twice as she pushed the female button. An avatar popped up in the mirror completely naked. It had the standard dark brown bob hair cut, and round dark brown eyes. The character's name popped up over top: RelicPetals.

Mikan noticed there were two different button choices along the side.

 **Human**

 **Halfling**

Since this was a game, Mikan decided to choose the Halfling. There were a few options to mix and match before she ultimately chose between being a human and cat. There she started from the top of her avatar and worked her way down.

She lengthened her hair, changed the color to a reddish orange. She had light sprite-like bangs that bounced up over the top of her forehead. Her ears placed on top of her cranium, fur decorated her ears like a cats. Behind her avatar, a strawberry reddish colored thin tail emerged. Almost feline, but still had humanistic looks. Mikan changed her eye color to match her hazel color, and adjusted her height to be about the same as her real height.

If this game involved combat, she wanted to be as comfortable in her skin as possible. Even if she had to look the exact same. She chose a green tunic, dark brown leggings, brown leather corset for armor, and a necklace which enhanced her magical aura.

Her boots went past her knee, covering a decent amount of skin. The only skin showing on her were her face and arms. Unlike those other online Dream and Core games, she wasn't going to dress like a slinky hoe. What was it with revealing clothing anyway?

Her next choice happened to be the classes.

 **Barbarian**

 **Fighter**

 **Rogue**

 **Bard**

 **Monk**

 **Sorcerer**

 **Cleric**

 **Paladin**

 **Wizard**

 **Druid**

 **Ranger**

 **Swashbuckler**

 **Summoner**

 **Ninja**

Mikan sighed-all of these were basic to any archetype class system within a game. She decided to go with Cleric as she liked to be supporting using healing spells and boosters. With her gender, character, race, and class chosen, Mikan selected "safe word" and input her out word.

"Marmalade7"

In case there happened to be marmalade as a fixture in the game, Mikan added a number to be safe. RelicPetals stared back at her through the mirror. Mikan reached forward, and when she did, her hand brushed against RelicPetals outstretched fingers.

"I'm ready-are you?" She asked herself and the world exploded in a flash of light. She wasn't in an abyss of space anymore, but rather an open grass knoll. The air was clean, crisp to smell and Mikan could the heavy leather wrapped around her bodice. She looked down and noticed she was not herself, but her Halfling version.

A grey critter darted in the grass by her feet, which caused her to jump in fright. Her character traits were not that high, as she was only level 1, so she tripped over her own tail. She took 2 point of health damage. She noticed her HP bar to the left of her wrist, where the green bar marked 42 HP took a negative 2.

"Ow!" She muttered.

"Did you trip on your own tail?" Mikan twisted her attention up to see a hand with taloned nails reach out. Her own hand, slender and taloned, accepted the help with appreciation. She noticed above his avatar read: Kuroneko.

He had gone with the Halfling avatar, choosing ruby cats-eye. His eyebrow were pointy, just as they were IRL, and he dressed similar to a steampunk pirate would. Dark cargo pants, laced boots, multitude of belts decorating his waist. He had two weapon holsters. One for his sword, the other for his pistol. Mikan could tell Kuroneko did not care for his clothing, which explained the simplicity in his white button up, and simple leather vest.

She noticed his black tail swing behind him. His tail was longer than hers, and had a bit more weight to it.

"Earth to Petals?" Mikan snapped out of it. "Sorry Kuro, I was still figuring out the character."

Once she was stable, she saw the Land of Time fill up with more avatars. People, ranging from Humans to Halflings appeared. Their outfits varied as well, some were fantasy like, and others seemed to take on a more futuristic look.

"Should have known you'd gone with the fantasy look." Kuroneko joked, he even guessed her class. "Let me guess, Cleric?"

Mikan nodded, "Someone has to support in battle. Uhh-fighter?" She took a stab at his class, and noticed too late what he actually was.

"Ooo, nope. Swashbuckler. You really don't know me." He dropped his taloned hand on top of her head to mess with her hair. Once his hand caught onto her ear, she meowed contentedly, and instantly snapped her hand to her lips. She didn't mean to make that sound. Her tail curled up around her, and she tensed.

"There you guys are." Drawing attention away from her meow/purr, Mikan gave an appreciative glance over. She discovered a human girl with cropped black hair, dressed like a futuristic space officer. The other one, a Halfling cross between Eagle and human, dressed like an archer during the vikings era. The usernames over the two read Cool_Blue_Sky and EagleEye respectively.

Escaping from Kuroneko's grasp, Mikan chuckled nervously. She played with her tail that curled up in front of her. "These avatars are something... hehe."

Kuroneko grunted. "Hn."

Suddenly, a screen popped up in front of their group. A young adult male, wearing circular glasses and a lab coat greeted them. "Hi, I'm Yuu Tobita. I'm the artificial intelligence designed to helped your characters throughout the story line. I hold manuals for controls as well as track story progress. Later on I will also inform you of quests and mercenary opportunities." The male smiled to them.

"The tutorial will commence shortly, would you like to know how to form a party?" Everyone in the group stared at the virtual window.

EagleEye answered for their group first. "What is the benefit for forming a party?"

Yuu Tobita continued to smile. "Parties can hold no more than six players. The benefits include achieving specific quest requirements, item sharing, and co-operation tactics. More will be explained as it becomes more reverent."

The command box opened up to reveal: "Form A Party with Kuroneko, Cool_Blue_Sky, and EagleEye"?

Mikan swallowed the hairball in the back of her throat. "I wonder if this is like a mix between Twirim and Roleplaying?" She pressed accept, and a link formed between the four. They too accepted the party requests.

Cool_Blue_Sky agreed. Unfortunately she was not as adverse to this style of play.

For Kuroneko and EagleEye, it seemed much easier to take in.

"By Co-operation, do you mean techniques? For example, I use a sword attack, and I have a mage cast fire, would that change into a fire sword attack?"

Yuu took in EagleEye's question before spitting up a textbook response. "Techniques are singular until two compatible characters find arts that blend. You will be able to find the manual detailing more under Battling with Friends (part 3)."

"How do you know if characters are compatible?" Kuroneko ventured a question of his own to the AI.

"Character compatibilty solely relies on the player. Under the main menu, accessed through your wrist console, you will find Character Growth. There you will see all others in your party, how much compatibility you have, and what skills you have unlocked. Finding the combinations are up to the players." Yuu finished his explanation before turning his attention behind him. "Oh, be careful. An enemy is approaching. First you'll need to draw your weapons."

Yuu indicated to each other them how to access their weapons if they weren't already on their person. Kuroneko immediately drew his sword and gun, ambidextrous being one of his character feats. EagleEye drew his bow and arrows, focusing on the test before them. Mikan and Cool_Blue_Sky had to open their main menu and equip their starter weapon. Cool_Blue_Sky's magically appeared in her hand, a simple baton wand that sparked when she waved it. Mikan also drew a wand, but hers happened to be longer, with a pearl attached to the top.

"A battle commences once an enemy is in sight. The best strategy to approach monsters is to sneak up behind them. By striking first, you gain momentum of the attack. Beware though, if the enemy gets the jump on you, the same effect will happen. Try sneaking up on this group of monsters."

A group of bunny-like creatures appeared about ten feet away. Their backs were toward them nibbling at the ground. The group looked to each other before exchanging puzzling looks.

Cool_Blue_Sky, being more of a strategist than a fighter, took charge. "Alright, Kuroneko will perform an attack and EagleEye will follow up with his shot. RelicPetals will stay further back to help support, and I'll get my fire spell ready to fire at the whole group." It seemed like a pretty good plan.

"Remember, this is a game-don't be afraid you're hurting something alive." EagleEye reminded them all, but mostly to Mikan. She looked apprehensive to attacking defenseless bunnies. "They're bits of program data."

Each player positioned themselves, Yuu giving helpful hints to each of them via the comm link. Kuroneko initiated the battle by a horizontal slash, knock one of the five bunnies to the side. Three of the bunnies jumped to kick his character, but EagleEye had fired two of his arrows. Two bunnies took the arrow damage, effectively knocking them out. Kuroneko dodged out of the way from the third bunnies' kick, but his tail caught him off guard. He took two damage points, and the fifth bunny who waited to strike, hit him for 4 points of damage.

Mikan watched as he tumbled into a barrel roll, and she stammered. She could see his health bar above his avatar go from 62 to 56. "Health-health...ah..."

A tutorial screen with Yuu's face popped up again.

"To cast magic, all you have to do is chant the spell's name aloud. It looks like the only spells you know are cure, protect, dispel, and esuna."

She collected herself before she lifted her staff high in the air. "Cure!" Mikan wasn't sure if she had her targeting right, but a wind of billowing light swirled up and around. It circled around Kuroneko and healed his health up to full.

Cool_Blue_Sky finished her own spell, targeting the fifth bunny while the third was shot down by EagleEye's arrow. The bunnies disappeared in a poof of smoke leaving behind some trinkets and coins. A number circled around each of their avatar's, following the number were the letters EXP. A few seconds later, everyone heard a bell sound coming from their wrist console.

"Congratulations on leveling up," Yuu explained as soon as the bell sound went off. "If you access the main menu, you can add points into the character growth page under the subpage: Skill Sets."

Everyone followed the instructions, finding the subpage on their wrist console. They had 3 points each when they peered at each other's wrist console. Mikan looked down at hers and noticed her skill tree had five circles branching out into other mini tree skill sets.

"Should I put the points in anywhere?" Mikan surmised. Cool_Blue_Sky gave her the impression that she didn't know what to do either.

"Petals, wait before you do something stupid," Kuroneko repimanded. He looked at her skills available and advised accordingly. "Focus on your reload timing for spells, give yourself some boost in mana, and add potency to the spells you cast. You're only level two, but if you focus on these three things for now, by level 8 you can start dividing points into your offensive spells."

EagleEye also helped Cool_Blue_Sky do the same idea, but focused more on the offensive spell potency than support.

"Our skill trees don't raise our stats? Like physical strength, dexterity, charisma..?" Mikan posed, and before Kuroneko could respond, Yuu had answered.

"When a character levels up, the stats are already programmed to rise. This is based upon the class you have chosen. Your skills are the only things players have to build and grow. Likewise, you can practice your techniques in battles and expand them into stronger spells or attacks."

Mikan seemed to understand a bit more about the gameplay.

Yuu Tobita smiled at them once again. "Now, next we shall introduce parrying and blocking."

Everyone in the group groaned in unison. Everyone forgot how tedious and annoying tutorials were until that moment.

* * *

Mikan slapped her face with her taloned hand, had she a controller the parrying and blocking would have been slightly easier… but this tutorial had them practice until they were buckling at the knee.

Mikan had dropped to her knees, sweat pouring from her forehead as she exhausted the last of her MP into healing everyone. After a short rest her HP and MP would rise, but that was only when there were no enemies nearby. Kuroneko and EagleEye had perfected the block and parrying. Cool_Blue_Sky had managed a mana shield, but that only lasted thirty seconds. She also had her own mana shield that she grew accustomed to, but Mikan couldn't concentrate with the boys running low on HP.

Yuu Tobita congratulated them for raising their shield and parrying skills up to level 2.

"How much longer of the tutorial?" EagleEye asked, mostly for curiosity than anything else.

"You're about 1/5 done with the training." Yuu chipped up happily. "You're the second the last group left according to the data plots.

Kuroneko glowered. Meanwhile Cool_Blue_Sky groaned into her gloved hands. "I have never thought I'd say this, but we're the game critics that suck at tutorials. We're like that idiot who couldn't bloody jump and soar past the barrier."

Mikan grimaced. She remembered this particular video on MeTube. This video also gave a poor critic of Teacup Cranium, which was sad because it was a fairly decent platformer despite the stupid running levels. Boss fights got harder as one progressed in the story, but the music was spot on.

EagleEye pushed himself back up onto his feet. "Shove off, let's blaze through the rest. Everyone knows parrying is the hardest in these roleplay games." Any gamer would feel their pride at risk when compared to a bad game critic.

Kuroneko could not agree more. "Everyone ready? Let's move on. Yuu, show us the next part."

* * *

Natsume pushed their party to the limit. He could see RelicPetals gasping for air, Cool_Blue_Sky had placed her head between her legs, and EagleEye was massaging his hands. They were at level 6 thanks to the extra training they committed themselves to. If anyone were to complain about that, their levels would put them to shame. If there was one thing Natsume was good at handling, it was the long hours of grinding to breeze past a game.

It was the quickest, and surefire way to make it through a roleplay that had no guides up yet.

Yuu approved of their progress and cleared them from the tutorial session. A bell sound came from their wrist console and it scrolled across the screen: **Quest: Tutorial Completed.** A rain of experience points washed over them, as well as an item for each player. While the experience wasn't enough to raise them up another level, it did get pretty close to it. What kept their minds off the experience was the shiny hourglass hovering by them.

Everyone gazed at the new item quizzically. Another bell sound chimed from their console, and it directed them to their main quest. **Main Quest 1: Find the irregularities in Mydalr.**

Yuu smiled before explaining what this key item was. "This is the remnants of time. Your objective is to collect these broken pieces of time and return it to Chronos, the God of Time. He has pre-selected you as his champions to complete his mission. There are many enemies that will try to manipulate the time, but it is your duty to collect the time pieces back. This will restore time back to normal in that world and you will travel to another set location."

Natsume gathered the storyline and quest with relative ease. But there was something that bugged him. Like all games, there was a chance their characters would die. The infinity marker in the top left hand corner of his console also concerned him.

"What does this infinity symbol mean?" Natsume pointed to the symbol in question. Yuu answered convincingly.

"That is how many lives you have. Currently you have 1 lif—" Yuu glitched before finishing. He looked confused at the infinity symbol. "Infinity amount of life. Players have infinity amount of life." This time when Yuu spoke, his dialect was stoic and devoid of the life it had before. He sounded like a cheerful class president cheering on his classmates before, but now he was robotic like.

Everyone glanced at Yuu's screen back to their console. The infinity sign remained ominous to them.

"It could be a glitch in their gaming program." Cool_Blue_Sky replied. She remained calm as she thought back. "We do have the safe word to use to escape the game as well. It's not like a game over is going to do anything."

Natsume frowned. His whiskers twitched in thought.

EagleEye also commented, "Eh, we get a game over we zap back and lose some experience or time maybe? We're just beta testing anyway. What's the worst that could happen?"

RelicPetals pondered. Wouldn't it be ironic for beta testers to get stuck into a virtual reality game? She laughed despite how ironic it truly would be. Kuroneko seemed to catch her glance and slight chuckle.

"Something on your mind Petals?"

RelicPetals shook her head, "No. But, how do we get to this Mydalr from the Land of Time?"

Yuu somehow regained his personality between those few split moments and introduced them to the hourglasses. "The hourglass will teleport you where you need to go. It is the compass on your journey. You will travel to many different places, all ranging from areas and of course periods. Your attire will automatically change according to the period, but you will have to update your armor in the local armorers. Further information can be found in the manuals on **Shopping (Items), Shopping (Armorer), Shopping (Weapons).** Good luck."

The four of them stared at the hourglasses in front of them. They supposed that if they were a party, their quests would be the same. Although, they did wonder where Sh4D0w_M4nipul4t0r was. Hopefully he too formed a party and was enjoying the game.

"On the count of three?" RelicPetals stated, and all four lifted their hands up.

"One," RelicPetals and Cool_Blue_Sky chimed.

"Two," EagleEye continued.

"Three." Natsume finished and reached his hand out, as did everyone else. The Land of Time shifted and crashed into tiny fragments of lights, but not before Natsume saw what looked like another avatar reaching out to them. It seemed to be yelling something at them, something that he couldn't figure out.

The world shifted, altered, and changed teleporting the four of them away from the tutorial grounds.

* * *

"Shit…" He was gasping for air trying to catch their group before they touched the hourglass. He should have known this would have happened. After all, they'd been stuck in this game world for over ten years now.

His long black hair shaped his face, his purple eyes were anxious darting back and forth between the space. "Tsubasa, sorry I failed."

A chatroom link opened up for him as the familiar face of Tsubasa popped up. The only difference in his persona was his scar over his left eye that accented the star tattoo upon his face. His attire was that of a ninja, wearing all black from head to toe. His one eye, the right, was bright azure like before when the game started.

"It's all good Tono, Persona is on our trail anyway. We should regroup and make our escape. We'll meet with Mikan, Natsume, Ruka, and Hotaru soon." The intercom dropped and Akira pulled his hourglass from his pocket. It was three-fourths full of time dust. Activating the power of his time dust, Akira jumped out of the Land of Time to where his friends would be.

* * *

ANDDDD That's the end of Chapter 2. Hope you all enjoyed. :)

 _Reviewers:_

 **Guest:** Thank you for the review! Hope you like the next chapter.

 **Read at your own risk:** I actually haven't watched Sword Art Online-scratch that, I've watched one parody episode of the sword art online on youtube but that's about it. I'm not surprised though, since many of the "trapped in RPG open world games" are similar in some ways. I hope you enjoy the next chapters coming up. :) Thank you for the review!

TK Out!


	4. First Battle

They had been teleported on an off-the-path cliff side. The area looked inhabited, far from what they assumed Mydalr was located. The woods were thick, with lush trees blanketing the area and mossy covered bushes. The sun light, as dim as it was, indicated that it was almost evening.

Mikan shook her head, trying to reorient herself in the surrounding. The jump caused slight nausea to blossom in her stomach, if it wasn't for her feline attributes she'd have thrown up her breakfast right then and there. "That was one hell of a ride." She muttered. She wiped her face to scratch the itch by her whiskered cheeks. Only silence greeted her.

"Cool_Blue_Sky?" Mikan snapped her head to look around her. "EagleEye? Kuroneko?" Her voice jumped an octave while her tail curled in fright. "Guys?!"

She noticed her wrist console chimed, and her right taloned hand vibrated from the notification. It was a nifty system that let the testers know when they received a message. When she touched the notification box on her console, a chat screen appeared. From there, she noticed Kuroneko, Cool_Blue_Sky, and EagleEye had already created a makeshift chatroom for their party.

 **Kuroneko:** " _What's everyone's 10.20?"_

 **EagleEye** : " _By a creek. What's your 10-20 Kuro?_ "

 **Kuroneko** : " _Under a canopy of trees."_

 **Cool_Blue_Sky:** " _Am I the only one in Mydalr?_ "

 **EagleEye** : _"Is RelicPetals with you?"_

 **Cool_Blue_Sky** : " _No, she not with you?"_

Mikan sighed a breath of relief when Cool_Blue_Sky's messaged instantly popped up. That must mean that they were all currently on. It took her a couple seconds to figure out the keyboarding. She pressed the small little arrow by the chat and noticed it turn green. It reminded her of the Dascord group settings where all you needed to do was speak. "I'm by some cliff, with trees and lots of undergrowth." She replied, and her words instantly became a text box within the chat. "Cool."She murmured at the system and it copied her text as well. Although, she figured it would be a little easier if it allowed for voice chatting options.

 **RelicPetals:** " _I'm by some cliff, with trees and lots of undergrowth. Cool."_

 **Kuroneko** : " _I see a cliff near my position. RelicPetals, stand by the edge._ "

Mikan did as she was told, and peered down. The only thing that she saw were trees and greenery. Her tail flicked back and forth curiously.

 **Kuroneko** : " _I see you_."

 **EagleEye:** " _I also see the profile of RelicPetals. Should we three meet up and then join Cool_Blue_Sky?"_

 **Cool_Blue_Sky** : " _I will see what information I can find out about Mydalr. Maybe I can dig up some stuff for our main quest."_

 **Kuroneko:** _"That sounds like the game plan to me."_

 **RelicPetals:** _"Okay, I'll follow the path down then."_

 **EagleEye:** " _Hey RelicPetals, you don't have offensive spells so be careful. There are enemies roaming._ "

 **Kuroneko:** _"I'm heading there now."_

 **RelicPetals:** _"Don't worry, I got my trusty wand by my side."_

Mikan opened her main menu to pull out her weapon. Her console pinged as it alerted her to a new message.

 **EagleEye:** _"While scoping I noticed a fairly large bird flying around—keep your ears peeled."_

Taking the mental note down for possible enemies nearby, Mikan steeled her resolve. If she didn't make it to Kuroneko or EagleEye and lost a life, she'd be the first one out of beta-testing. Although the infinity symbol representing her life span also made her curious to see what would happen.

She made her way through the shrubbery and she found herself staring down at a blue slime ball. It had googly eyes and bobbed in place. It appeared to have noticed her entrance and wiggled and writhed. "Uh…" She could see it was a level 3 slime. It's red health bar said only 22 HP, 30 MP. She looked at her own stats and realized that despite not having offensive spells, she might be able to hit it enough to kill it. Plus, she was double its level. She'd be fine even without the guys here. Mikan raised her wand up, and swung it down upon the blob.

The blue goo splashed around her wand, and it absorbed the physical attack. While it took a negative one damage, it looked royally pissed that she'd hit it with her simple wand. It started to cast a spell, she could see that it was water based, the element dripping off droplets where it cast. Suddenly, water bullets pierced out from the blue slime and rushed toward Mikan's avatar. Her dexterity and endurance were significantly lower than a fighter, so she had a bit of difficulty dodging. She managed to miss the first two shots, but the third shot of water pelted her right in the face. Mikan staggered, her whiskers and cat ears were drenched and she saw a staggering drop in her health. How the hell did it critical her?

She panicked. Her flight and fight system kicked in, causing her to flee in a hurry. Her boots pounded on the ground as she rushed to escape the initiated battle. "Why me!" She yelped and looked behind her. She could see that the blue blobby monster was indeed following her.

It tried to attack her while she was fleeing, but the shots continued to rushed down the hillside, until she ran smack into a dark-haired male with ruby eyes. "Of course, you'd be the one to start a fight." He charged straight at the blue blob that stopped in its movement. Kuroneko raised his sword up as he charged up his specialty technique.

"RelicPetals! Kuroneko!" EagleEye came at a jogging speed, pulling out his bow to adjust his shot. He narrowed in on his target and laced the arrow with his own technique. "Get back!"

Kuroneko's ears perked at the command, and with his acrobatic skill he flipped backward. He could feel the air shift as EagleEye released his arrow. Mikan edged further away from the battle scene as she witnessed the blob took 11 damage from Kuroneko's attack, and an overkill shot from EagleEye for 18 damage.

The blob exploded into bits of blue goo, and experience divided itself between the three of them. Kuroneko sheathed his cutlass and Mikan put her wand away. "Care to turn off your messenger so that we don't see you screaming?" He directed the question over to the auburn who immediately fumbled to her wrist console. She knew she forgot to turn off something. In the chat group she noticed the several lines from her avatar that went along the lines of: Uhhh, ahhhh, owwwieee, why me!

"Overdramatic much?" Kuroneko responded casually as he flicked off blue goo from his long sleeved, baggy shirt. He wasn't dressed as he had been during the Land of Time—in fact he looked similarly like how she was dressed. The same applied to EagleEye, as he broke through the bushes.

"I'm sorry I forgot to turn it off. Wouldn't it be easier if it was a microphone system instead? This chat to text speech is cool, but kind of weird at the same time." Once the setting was off, Mikan flung bits of blue goo off herself. "And, that was a bit overkill, don't you think EagleEye?"

"Nah, if anything that's extra experience points." EagleEye smirked, rubbing his finger under his nostrils. Mikan could see his sense of accomplishment for defeating the blob."There was a Crit bonus rewarded. Check your activity log." EagleEye did as Kuroneko suggested, and he noticed the critical bonus had been awarded to them for the final arrow he shot.

"Only a 3% increase in experience? That's a bit sad." EagleEye sighed, he also noted the negative percentage when RelicPetals took a critical to her own character. He closed the menu and looked to the two of his gaming friends. "And it appears we lose out on the percentage if we get crit'ed."

"A grade system then." Kuroneko replied coolly as she surveyed the area. He didn't sense anything beyond the tree line.

"Jot it down in your console for your beta notes." Mikan offered. She had a few notes for her beta experience so far. She wanted to make note of the long tutorial process, and how support characters would have a difficult time running solo in the beginning stages. There was also the messenger she just noted. She also wanted to note that she felt a bit weird—like she felt tired, hungry, and dizzy. If this was a game, then she shouldn't be feeling these side effects as heavily as she was now.

"Hey Petals, you alright?" Kuroneko's ear twitched in her direction, his whiskers flicking on the side of his face as he assessed her.

It was this moment that Mikan shook her feline head. "No—to be honest I feel weird. I think I'm going to call it here." She tinkered with her wrist console. Kuroneko moved over to her, and noticed her trying the log out feature. Mikan touched the logout button and she'd been taken to the system shut down. She went to key in her code, but before she could finish typing: Marmalade7, her console glitched and booted her out.

"What the…?" She attempted the logout three more times. Each time she failed to logout, the more anxious she became. Kuroneko and EagleEye tensed at her failures.

"Marmalade7." Mikan yelled. She remembered that the scientists and doctors in the testing lab had said they had only need to say their system fail word to get booted out.

"Petals, are you sure you are saying the right passcode? You didn't forget it, did you?" EagleEye tried to soothe her tension with some possible explanation, but she shook her head. Mikan felt her stomach bottom into what seemed like a dark hole. Her throat seemed to clench the air from her lungs, robbing her of her breath. Despite that, she pushed through her anxiety to speak. Broken words, but they were words none the less.

"Y-yes. I remember I put marmalade because it's my favorite. 7 is my birth date."

Kuroneko immediately went to his logout mode and attempted his passcode. "Kickstarter32." He went through the same glitch. Mikan watched him give a cross expression before closing his menu console. "That's no good." EagleEye turned to Kuroneko and gave him a bewildered expression. "Maybe we need to complete the first main quest before attempting a logout? But that would contradict what they said in the lab."

"Let's meet up with Cool_Blue_Sky in Mydalr and—"

Mikan could barely hear what they were talking about after that moment. She could feel her body get jittery, the same way it would when she felt claustrophobic. She knew that she was out in a wooded area, but the feeling of it being a game gripped her mind like tight shackles. Her irony from before seemed omniscient of what may come ahead. What if they were trapped in the game. Mikan couldn't see past the black void, something cold gripped her from deep within. It was only until two warm, clawed hands gripped the sides of her face that brought her back to reality. She saw him, his black whiskers, narrowed ruby eyes, his frown that etched what someone would typically consider handsome.

Before she could react, he covered her mouth with a cupped hand, and he used the other to support the back of her head. "Calm down." Kuroneko replied. "Remember who you are and why you're here."

Mikan closed her eyes and tried to calm her body. Her shaking diminished and finally, her lungs started to work again. She breathed from in and out from her nose, until she felt the pressure from her neck and mouth release. "Good, focus on short and even breaths."

"You alright?" EagleEye peered at her with worried azure eyes. Kuroneko moved away from her and looked beyond the tree line. "I'm fine now. Thanks." She shuffled her equipment before looking at the male feline who happened to see past her anxiety. He was right about needing to calm down though. Nothing would get fixed if they panicked. They were stuck in the game for the time being. Mikan came to terms with this fact when she saw EagleEye and Kuroneko's calm resolve. "Let's get moving."

Kuroneko narrowed his eyes as he led the trio toward what Mikan assumed would be Mydalr. She could feel the wind change, the way the leaves rustled in the air gave her an eerie sense of belonging. She remembered Kuro's words as she walked right behind them. "emRemember who you are and why you're here." Her fist clenched tightly around her staff. She was a beta tester and she was one of the best. _This game—Origin—I won't let it defeat my spirit. We'll figure a way out. I know we will._

 **T.K. Here!**

 **Sorry for the long wait, I got really swamped with finishing up the school year, and then I had my book to sell at comic fest. This is the third installment of Origin. We're slowly making our way to the first game plot. :D Hope you all enjoy and thank you for those who reviewed! I appreciate your time and consideration! I will try to keep on improving!**


	5. Mydalr

_**Chapter 4:**_

 _ **Mydalr**_

* * *

 _ **As always, I don't own Gakuen Alice or have access to use these beautiful characters outside of fanfiction. All rights belong to Higuchi Tachibana-san.**_

* * *

Mydalr happened to be a small but prospering village that resided in the middle of an abundant forest. Many townsfolk walked in droves, whether they were by themselves, paired off, or in groups; everything had been meticulously detailed as if this were an actual village.

Natsume, EagleEye, and RelicPetals entered the town. They half-expected the guardsmen to turn to them with the typical "Welcome to Mydalr…" speech but never received one.

"So—this is Mydalr?" RelicPetals inquired as if to question the schematics of the game. The guardsmen who she addressed turned to them with a quizzical look.

"..Yes? It's the only other small village in this region, beside the motherland of course." The guard looked at all three of them before shaking his head. The helmet that surrounded his cranium lightly rocked with the motion. "Are you travelers? There were a few more travelers that came not too long ago.

RelicPetals perked, "Oh! Maybe one of them was Cool_Blue_Sky!" The name, when said aloud, caused the man to scrunch his eyebrows.

"That's… a rather peculiar name." He made no signs to hide his disgust. "Weird beast-people." He finally muttered and turned back to his post. It seemed to them that he wanted nothing more than to end their conversation.

Kuroneko and EagleEye both gave each other a side glance before turning to the village. It was true that it was small. Many of the buildings were made of dark brown logs from trees, and the shingled roofs slanted like an acute triangle. The angle indicated that they receive plenty of snow when the winter season arrives. The greenery around the buildings were vast, with an abundance of grass, what seemed to be an acre of trees all around, and manmade walkways that looks like dirt footpaths. Pavement and cement were not things of this time or realm apparently.

Signage posted outside of the buildings indicated what they were. There happened to be a building with a sign with a potion in front of it. Right next door, another building had a placard that hung on the wall with the symbol of a sword and shield, a few buildings down to the left happened to be a building labeled with a bracelet.

The largest building of the town happened to be at the tail end, it didn't have a sign to label it but the group could only assume it to be the mayor's or leader's residence.

The building that caught their attention the most happened to be the one with the drink, food, and large lettered INN sign on the door. Even from the outside, they could hear the loud boisterous drinking and hollering from inside. Natsume gestured for them to head over to the Inn.

RelicPetals could only continue to glance back at what she assumed was a non-playable character or NPC. "I don't mean to be that obvious person…" She started and Natsume briefly stopped.

"But you are obvious." This stoic remark caused EagleEye to chuckle.

"Shut up." RelicPetals tried to hide her embarrassment by just continuing her train of thought. "I mean, don't NPCs have specific sayings like: 'Welcome to Mydalr!' or 'I took an arrow to the knee!' type of thing?"

EagleEye snorted at her comment while Natsume grasped his chin. He tweaked his whiskers in thought before shaking his head. "I don't think we should be worried about their personalities at the moment. We should be more concerned with how we should exit the game without..." He paused and decided to just let it go. He didn't want to think of the other alternative for the game to end.

Although both EagleEye and RelicPetals seemed to catch what he didn't want to indicate aloud.

"They reacted weirdly to the usernames." EagleEye commented. They had made it to the Inn and he was the first to open the door. The smell of food wafted into their olfactory system as they entered.

"Perhaps we should use aliases then?" RelicPetals offered and both the boys gave her a sardonic expression.

"Yes, use an alias for the alias we already use…. Smooth Petals." EagleEye replied before shifting attention to Natsume. "Kuro, should we use our real names then?"

He seemed to be accepting of this option that the alias one Petals suggested. "I just don't want to bring any more attention to us." Natsume replied and stared at the counter ahead. There was a half-bar, half-inn set up where several townsfolk were drinking ale and eating the local cuisine. Their entrance into the bar made some heads turn to stare.

 _New faces must be something that hardly happens in this region_. The ruby eyed male thought before he recognized the back of a certain avatar. She was sitting with her head held high, and she was holding something similar to a tank of ale. Natsume walked over to the girl and stopped to peer over her shoulder.

"You've been busy looking for that first quest, huh?" Natsume remarked at the sight of plates.

The one whom he talked to was none other than Cool_Blue_Sky. She wiped her face with a handkerchief before turning to see both RelicPetals and EagleEye there too. She narrowed her amethyst orbs to the hazel eyed cat-feline before lifting her wrist console up for her to see. Their chat dialogue from before lit up and all of RelicPetals commentary and screaming were shown.

"I couldn't concentrate on finding information when an idiot kept messaging Ugh, Ows, why me's, and ahhh." She mimicked Petal's conversation verbatim with little to no emotion, and then glared to the auburn. "If I didn't know any better, I thought you were the first to die. Idiot."

RelicPetals leaped from her spot to wrap Cool_Blue_Sky in what seemed to be a loving hug. "I'm sorry for worrying you Sky! I promise to be more aware of the stuff that's going on!"

Cool_Blue_Sky just flicked RelicPetals on the forehead with her finger before turning back to her drink.

"Well, since we're all here." EagleEye grabbed a stool nearby that wasn't taken. "We should get some food to gather our strength." He motioned to his wrist console and everyone looked down to their own. Apparently on the main menu of the console showed a little symbol flashing red. It looked like food to them.

"I believe this is the status of 'hunger', that's why we are not feeling well. That must mean status effects are things we need to look out for in the future." The blonde quickly glanced over the short menu provided and sighed. "Beef stew. Beef sticks. Beef chili. I don't suppose they have a hidden menu for vegetarians."

Cool_Blue_Sky offered him a small smile, "I definitely recommend the beef chili. It's quite emmaculate and flavorful!"

Natsume stared at his friend before offering his own two cents. "I personally am partial to the beef stew."

EagleEye flushed, "You both know I'm vegetarian. How am I supposed to eat?"

RelicPetals pulled her own chair forward. "I suppose dietary options from our era won't pertain anymore." She, too, had been vegetarian but she recently started it about a year ago.

"What are you going to eat Petals? Aren't you in the same boat I'm in?" EagleEye hoped to gain an ally but soon realized that she wasn't that much involved as he was.

"Eh…It's just a game. What's the worst that could happen?" RelicPetals smiled, hoping to alleviate the situation.

"Constipation." Cool_Blue_Sky and Natsume both spoke at the same time.

This caused the Avian-male with blonde locks to get red in the face. "Both of you shut up. Errrr…..Fine! It's just computer pieces of data anyway!" EagleEye hastily looked over the menu while Natsume summoned the cook over with a taloned hand.

"Two beef stews." Natsume ordered.

"And I'll have an order the Beef sticks!" EagleEye yelled over. The cook acknowledged the order, and got back to work.

"Want to bet if he'll start to crave actual meat?" Cool_Blue_Sky said to Natsume, who immediately went to his console and found his money pouch. He materialized gold pieces from the wrist console.

"I bet a gold coin he'll complain of stomach pains."

"Deal."

"Hey!" EagleEye yelled at the two, while RelicPetals remained silent. She happened to be perusing through her own menu console finding the tutorial guides. There were several listed on there that were listed as **BRAND NEW**. She popped open the menu and scrolled to see what they were. **Shopping [Accessories], Battle [Earning Grade], Battle [Earning Money], Battle [Exploiting Weaknesses], Status Ailments, Cooking [Inn], Cooking [Gathering], and Inns [Sleeping]** were all the new guides listed on the help menu page.

The cook came over with the trio's food orders and placed them down on the counter. There was a slip of paper on the counter as well, which happened to be the bill. Natsume grabbed the bill before checking his money bag to see if he had enough.

She opened the status ailments page to read up on all of the ailments one could get. There were all the major and minor ailments that she happened to be familiar with.

"The status ailments seem to be the same like any other roleplay game." RelicPetals said aloud, and the group gave her their undivided attention.

"Good for your EagleEye, constipation doesn't seem to be an afflicted status you can receive." Cool_Blue_Sky remarked with a devilish smirk while Natsume chuckled.

"Bugger off."

At this point, RelicPetals closed the menu, and opened the cooking tutorial to read about ways to procure food. One could either procure them through gathering ingredients and cooking them. The other guide talked about eating at inns whenever there happened to be one. There was a note of caution given on this page, as some lands may not have inns to make food.

"If you check the tutorial guide, there are tons of new pages added. It seems we may have to cook at some point." RelicPetals explained and was surprised when a bowl of beef stew was placed in front of her.

"Eat." Natsume said, breaking her concentration on the guide.

Cool_Blue_Sky had already eaten, so Natsume made sure to order a bowl for her to eat.

"Uh—thank you?" RelicPetals replied before the salty fragrance of seasoning and beef wafted into her nostrils. The lumps of carrots and beef in the broth mixture made her tongue start to salivate. The steam rose slightly above the curve of the bowl, and RelicPetals could only stare in awe. Suddenly a small window popped up with a short description.

 _ **Beef Stew**_

 _ **Stew made with beef and carrots, in a seasoned broth. Temporary added effect: Atk up 10% for one hour.**_

 _ **150 gold pieces**_

EagleEye also looked at his plate, with welts of meat slathered with thin cut slices of carrots, local veggies, and thick gravy. He grabbed his utensil and dug into the plate hoping it wouldn't change his diet in the real world. "It's only data!" He murmured into his third bite.

Natsume assumed EagleEye said this as a way to assuage his vegetarian heart.

"Wow! This is amazing!" RelicPetals exclaimed after several bites. She was surprised about the taste of the food. She thought it would be nothing more than bits of computer data.

"Well, after dinner, we could make our rounds around town again. We can split up, check things out, and meet back together at the main campgrounds." Cool_Blue_Sky replied and took another drink of her tankard. "No one is to leave the village until we have a better idea on what our first main quest is."

"Sounds good to me!" RelicPetals replied, and Natsume sighed. He was more concerned with her consistent mood swings than her leaving the village. He remembered her on the edge of an anxiety attack just an hour prior, but now she was perky as his sister's little corgi pup.

RelicPetals seemed to have caught his look. "Wha?" She asked with her mouth partially full of beef and carrots. Natsume rolled his eyes before turning back to his bowl. "Don't talk with your mouth full, idiot."

* * *

Mikan had volunteered to check out the shops on the southwest side, while Kuroneko took to the northwest side of town. EagleEye went southeast, and Cool_Blue_Sky went northeast. They split amicably, also agreeing to only refer to each other in the simplest of their usernames. While they could have called each other by their first names, it was still difficult to break the habit. Kuroneko was the only one who didn't seem that affected by calling them by their first names.

She wandered into the first open building with the placard of the bracelet, only to find it empty. The owner was not in sight, but the items for sale were still left out. She peered down at the accessories before picking one up. The one that she picked up happened to have dust particles squeezed inside of a circular tubing that was plated with a rubbery material. A shiny red gem accentuated the piece. A small window popped up next to the item, and Mikan was able to read a small description.

 _ **Garnet bracelet**_

 _ **A bracelet studded with garnet. Enhances attack slightly. Atk + 40**_

 _ **900 gold pieces**_

Mikan placed the bracelet down back where she found it. She barely had 500 gold coins in her purse. She noticed other things within the shop. There was a bangle that looked to be made of bronze. It too came up with a small description window.

 _ **Bronze Bracelet**_

 _ **A bracelet made from bronze. Enhances health points slightly. HP + 50**_

 _ **500 gold pieces**_

She would have left the store after looking around at the other expensive items, but a crashing sound near the back of the store caught her attention. Mikan hobbled carefully around the rope separating the cases of accessories and the main counter space, to run to the back door. When she reached the door, she could hear two muffled voices beyond the threshold.

"You have less than 3 days to find the materials needed to make that ring. Or else." Another loud crashing noise beyond the door caused Mikan to jump in fright. It seemed to her that someone was threatening someone else behind the shop.

"O-Okay—it will be done—I will get the items myself if I have to." Mikan could hear the quake in the second male who spoke. She would have pressed her ear against the door to hear what else was going to be mentioned, but her wrist console buzzed to alert her of a new notification.

The sound was enough to drive the one threatening to end their discussion. "Who's there!" Mikan quickly moved as she heard the footsteps approaching the door. She scrambled to find a place to hide, a measly shadowed spot underneath the table. She thrust a few dark curtains in front of her before the backdoor to the shop opened with a loud thud.

She could hear the footsteps getting closer to where she hid, but willed her mind to stay calm. _Remember who you are, and why you are here. Breathe._

"S-sir." The second man called from the doorway this time. The one who had opened the door roughly had turned back to the scared male.

"You have 3 days Vormud. Or you'll lose more than just this shop." At that, Mikan had to stifle a scream when he slammed down his fist into the table she was hiding under and the shattering of an accessory on top crunched under his hand.

After an agonized moment of silence, the door to the accessory shop open and closed with an abrupt slam. She also waited for that Vormud person to exit the shop through the back. More than likely to pick up the mess that happened out there. When she felt the coast was clear, she pulled herself out and then checked her wrist console.

"Stupid thing almost got me killed." She muttered before noticing a change in her main quest.

 _ **Main Quest 1: Find out more information from Vormud, the accessories goldsmith.**_

 _ **You have arrived at Mydalr, the small village in the forest. After having a meal at the local Inn, you and your friends decide to split up and look for clues on any irregularities. You have found out that Vormud, the accessories goldsmith, is being threatened by an unknown figure. You overhear that he requires certain materials to make a ring. Find out more information on the materials Vormud needs.**_

Mikan pulled herself out from her hiding spot and then saw the damage done to the items above. The garnet bracelet and what seemed to be a magical amulet necklace had been brutally crushed under the fist of that first man. She picked up the damaged accessory and watched as it broke under her fingers.

Silently, she picked up the materials so that she could give it back to the owner. If anything, he could remake it. It wasn't as if the garnet or dust inside had been completely rendered useless. The amulet necklace was broken in half, which may make it harder to repair.

She made her way through the back of the shop to the doorway. It was open, propped by a wooden crate with boxes of materials scattered around. She poked her auburn head outside to see an alleyway where another thin, lanky male knelt down. He was cleaning up some of the broken glass near the window pane.

"Uh—excuse me?" Mikan started, hoping not to startle him. Vormud jumped at the sudden voice, and dropped all of the glass pieces he picked up.

"Uh—uh—sorry, we're not open for business at the moment. We'll be back open in 4 days—give or take." He scrambled to make an excuse, and Mikan gave him an empathetic smile.

"It's alright—I—er—heard your exchange. I was in the shop browsing but then I heard a loud crashing sound. I'm sorry for eavesdropping." She amended and pushed both her hands out holding the broken garnet bracelet.

Vormud stared at her with wide brown eyes. "I'm—sorry you had to hear that. It was my fault that it's turned out this way." The man scratched behind his neck. He looked incredibly stressed by the whole ordeal. "If only I were stronger. Then I could get the materials and—" He broke off before crumpling his face into his hands. Luckily he wasn't holding the glass anymore.

Mikan did her best to ease his tension. "Hey—hey, it's okay! You're not at fault! The one at fault is the one who destroyed your window and your items!"

Vormud's shoulders shook. "No—it's not. The materials needed to make the ring he wants is much too difficult to get. It's found in the darkest parts of the caves to the north, but it's teeming with ferobears and wolves." The wrist console buzzed once more, alerting her to a new notification. He stared down at her wrist before he looked back at her. "You're not from around here, are you? Are you an adventurer?"

Mikan nodded, informing him that his suspicion was correct. "Well, I was just about to ask you if you'd like me to get the materials for you? Was it only the special ore that you needed, or something else?" She smiled at Vormud who jumped up from the alley.

"Follow me, I'll write down the three things that I need!" She followed him back into the shop and he produced a parchment of paper. He scribbled down three things: Earth gemstone, a Ferobear tusk, and the hide of a wolf.

"It will be dangerous, are you sure you'll be able to handle it?" Vormud asked, hesitant to give the list over to the girl.

Mikan smiled, then delicately placed the garnet bracelet down on his counter. "No worries, I have some of the best fighters on my team! We'll be done before you know it!" Vormud accepted her charismatic speech, and handed her the paper.

"Please, do be careful. This town is counting on you."

Mikan nodded. How grand of a first main quest to be.

* * *

Everyone gathered around the campfire shortly after the time limit expired. RelicPetals was the last to arrive, holding up a piece of paper as she ran. The group had already read their updated quest log, reading everything RelicPetals had set up while they were separated.

"Wouldn't it be easier to just beat the crap out of the one who is threatening the goldsmith?" Cool_Blue_Sky replied callously as she stared at the three items. The quest updated to include the three materials, and even stated where they should start heading.

"It wouldn't tell us what the irregularity is though." Natsume replied and stared at the main quest. It didn't necessarily feel like it should be main quest material. More like side quest.

"Alright, so we know what we need to do, so why don't we just gather the materials? Didn't Petals say we had a time limit?" EagleEye mentioned as he preened his feathered shoulder.

RelicPetals affirmed his question with a tilt of her head up and down. "3 days."

"Does that mean we also have time to do some side quests? I received several notes on side quests while checking out the bulletin board by the Inn." EagleEye replied, as he brought up some of the notices. Some of them were marked with:

 _ **Please bring the innkeeper five tomatoes.**_

 _ **There are a pack of wolves that attacked my flock. Can someone please kill them before my sheep are gone?**_

 _ **I require ten hides of the wolf. Deliver to armorer.**_

Natsume tweaked his cat whiskers. "Alright, let's get this done and over with. Just know that we're seriously going to grind this first area until we're at least level 15."

Cool_Blue_Sky, EagleEye, and RelicPetals all stared at him with horrified eyes. "You're one of _those_ people." RelicPetals cooed while EagleEye shook his head. He didn't mind grinding, but only when it was necessary. An area with slime blobs at level 2-3 deemed unworthy of being a level 15.

"Slave driver." Cool_Blue_Sky retorted and walked away to the entrance of the town. She didn't look back until Natsume pulled out his money purse from his console. He jingled it before looking at all of them.

"We're leveling up while gathering more money and materials. We can sell the extra materials, and start saving money. The weapons all range from 350-500 gold pieces. We need more money if we want to continue boosting our stats. Thus the need to level up." Natsume seemed to have gotten Cool_Blue_Sky's attention at the mention of more money, while EagleEye accepted it simply as is. RelicPetals just sighed as she pondered what on earth was she thinking to have been put in the same group as a grinder.

"Ugh…. I hate games that force you to level up…" She complained before Natsume pinched one of her feline ears. She yelped in pain before covering them with her talon hands.

"This isn't some visual novel that will have you with your _perfect boyfriend_ at the end of chapter 1. Take this seriously." Natsume argued his point and walked past Cool_Blue_Sky's avatar. She chuckled when Mikan flushed red at the comment. "Well my _perfect boyfriend_ wouldn't shove training down my throat, that's for sure." EagleEye took the flank of the group while glancing at his own inventory.

" _Perfect_ boyfriends do not exist. Now let's move." Natsume called back to them. He ignored the rest of her gripes as he prepared his cutlass and gun.

"I still hate this." She murmured at last. She went to join Cool_Blue_Sky in the middle of the group.

At least she could heal people. Maybe even boop a slime on the nose.

* * *

 **T.K. Here!**

Thank you so much for the reviews!

 **Wind of SilentBell** : Thank you very much for your review!

The weakest monsters are the ones that take you by surprise is right! The inspiration hit me when I was playing Zelda: BoTW and four blue large blobs came over Link. All I had was a tree branch and a korok leaf. Haha.

I love the chemistry between Natsume and Mikan, so I figured it wouldn't be too odd for him to notice the littlest things about her. I am glad you're excited for the next chapter to come! This arc is one of my favorites because there's so much character development and growth. Mikan, I feel, is one of those characters that is always energetic but also dispays signs of anxiety and depression. She's not bubbly all the time, but she definitely kicks herself back to "normal" for others. She doesn't always display weakness, but when she does, it's because she trusts you. Haha She's a favorite of mine, despite her angsty fifth grade self in the actual series. haha.

 **SunBabyBoss** : Thank you for your follow! I hope that you enjoy the next chapter! :D

 **Air High** : Yes! Yuu is one of my favorite Iincho's of all time! lol I wanted to incorporate him in the story, since he is an amazing supportive character. Thus we have tutorial Yuu, always with you at the push of a button! :) I like to think of him as Jiminy Cricket is to Sora in Kingdom hearts. The one who updates and adds all the guides and tutorials is none other than Yuu. :)


	6. Grinding

_**Chapter 5**_

 _ **Grinding**_

* * *

 ** _All character do not belong to me, they belong to their rightful creators. :) Higuchi Tachibana-san is benevolent._**

* * *

Experience points washed over the party after their thirtieth consecutive win against a pack of wolves. While the experience was not as much as it had been the first few bouts, it was still experience.

Mikan lifted her wand up in the air: "Cure." The healing wind she summoned circled around Kuroneko's character. His light wounds from the fight earlier had quickly mended, with his HP on the rise.

EagleEye's health happened to be several points off from his max, but it didn't mean he needed a healing spell. Cool_Blue_Sky had full health, mostly due to her hiding behind Kuroneko when she casted her spells.

It wasn't as if the girl was useless in battle. Far from it. Cool_Blue_Sky had offensive magic that affected the pack of beasts just as any sword, arrow, or bullet wound. The only ineffective one in this party happened to be Mikan, but healing took priority when their tank took the brunt of the damage.

Before they left Mydalr, they were merely level 6. Currently they just reached the cusp of leveling up to level 12. They only needed a few more battles with the wolves to bump them up to the next level. Their enemies were level 7, which made training difficult at first.

It was a team decision to decide not to use up and divide their skill points into the skill trees for their classes just yet. They wanted to get to level 13 before officially dropping points into skills. This actually gave them more time to get used to their character's powers and abilities before adding more on top of it.

EagleEye had finished gathering the hide material from the wolves pack they battled while Cool_Blue_Sky took the gold pieces to stash in the communal purse. They would split the earnings evenly once they were back into town. In the meantime, they would have one person in charge of items and the other in charge of money.

Mikan was deemed too clumsy to carry the money, as she lost over 100 gold coins over a cliff when she panicked over a wolf chasing her around in circles. This was the deciding factor on who they could trust to hold the money while out in enemy territory.

"We have about 31 swatches of hide from the wolves, 16 wolves teeth, about 2 tusks from a ferobear, 12 carrots, 4 oranges, 8 tomatoes, and plenty of raw meat." EagleEye organized the inventory before he also listed their other items. These were the typical items anyone would see in a RPG, like potions, hi-potions, and a few ethers.

Kuroneko's triangular ears twitched. He interrupted his friend with a quick reply. "There is something coming. 9-o,clock."

Mikan shifted her attention over to Kuroneko's left where a pack of three wolves jumped out. They were snarling, snapping their jaws to their company. Kuroneko jumped in front of the group, his cutlass out and gun displayed. He would have initiated the battle, but the wolves had the advantage.

Kuroneko missed his first attack, leaving Cool_Blue_Sky open for an attack. She had already started to cast a thunder spell, but was interrupted when the wolf tackled her. She held her arm up to block the wolf from biting her face off.

EagleEye had shot the arrow from the bow once the wolf tackled the young black mage. The arrow slammed into the wolf's eye as blood trickled down it's matted fur. Yelping in pain, the wolf bounced off of their mage, giving Kuroneko all the time he needed to dispatch the other two wolves with his sword.

Mikan looked over to Cool_Blue_Sky and noticed she had taken 14 points of damage from its attack. "Cure!" She raised her wand, and focused her healing art entirely upon Cool_Blue_Sky.

Before Kuroneko could deliver the finishing blow on the wolf attacking him, EagleEye swooped in for the kill. He aimed one of his powered up arrows, shooting one into the lunging chest of the wolf. A piercing cry from the wolf was all it took before the red HP bar whittled down to zero.

Mikan felt the rush of experience points flow through them and then she heard Yuu Tobita's voice in her head. **Congratulations on making it to level 12! I've added some new tutorial combat books in your help menu feature.** Mikan felt her console chime once again as three new pages popped up. **Battle [Nighttime], Battle [Chained Boosts], Battle [After Battle Effects and Boosts].**

"I've exhausted all my mana." Mikan replied in an exasperated voice. She found a log to collapse on. Her butt hurt when she landed, but the mental exhaustion lingered more than the physical pain.

"Eat this." Cool_Blue_Sky tossed Mikan an orange. A small description window popped up explaining the health benefits of the orange.

 _ **Orange**_

 _ **A sweet and tangy fruit refreshment. Heals up to 30 MP points after consumption.**_

Mikan peeled the skin off and sighed. This would be her fifth—scratch that—sixth orange that night. While RelicPetals seemed fine with the repetitious food, it didn't seem to have the same impact as the beef stew had.

"We covered all the side quests and trained up to level 12. Were you serious about training to level 15 Kuro?" EagleEye wiped the sweat from his face, waiting for the call from their tank. Kuroneko rolled his neck back and forth until he felt a soft pop. Then he went to stretch his shoulder.

"If we're good on supplies, we should keep training. The nighttime is good for active battling and experience boosts." Kuroneko wasn't wrong about the night time fighting. They learned if they continually had a successful battle and kept the chain going it would effectively boost their level.

The problem with this line of thought happened to be sleep, or lack thereof. Mikan finished her orange before tilting her head up to look at the night sky. "Can we just call it a night and pick this up in the morning? It's what—past 1 now?"

Cool_Blue_Sky chuckled at Mikan's response. "Are you not used to playing all night?"

Mikan sighed, "No, that's not it. I just feel like we should be fully rested for the next thing. The Earth Gemstone is all that we need, but what if there is a boss battle. You know these games have those types of things." She hoped logic would play a hand in their next course of action, but that was not to be the case.

"She's one of _those_ gamers." Kuroneko replied in a disdainful voice, mostly to mock her from her previous statement about him. "Instead of trudging headfirst, she turns tail, runs back to save, sleeps in a tent, saves again, and then tackles the boss."

"Okay, fine I am that type but is it that wrong to play on the airs of caution?" Mikan retorted before shuffling her cat feet. What else was she supposed to do?

"Welcome to Origin, the game that doesn't care what style of gameplay you've done." Cool_Blue_Sky said with little to no emotion. "It will challenge you with endless hours of torture and fun."

"That is if you can figure out how to logout." EagleEye said and they all frowned. "You know, this is a terrible way to promote a game. I wonder what our parents would say."

Kuroneko smirked, "Sucks to be you?"

"Wow." Mikan replied to the black haired cat.

"My parents totally told me that." EagleEye answered truthfully. "Although it was because I missed the black Friday sale for the re-release of Vinyl Vantasy VII."

Cool_Blue_Sky had been tinkering with her menu console. Mikan ignored the two boys in the party and decided to see what she was up to. She looked over her shoulder and noticed she was on the Character Growth page. "Distributing points already?"

"Something like that. I was branching off my magic toward lightning and fire spells. Shouldn't you do that same?" Cool_Blue_Sky offered her a seat next to her on the log.

"Yeah I suppose you're right." Mikan tapped on her own Character growth page and noticed a slight increase in a majority of her stats. While she had lower physical points, she had fairly decent points in magic and wisdom.

"I can unlock an aero spell." Mikan smiled as she continued to set her points where she deemed it would be necessary. The last of her points remaining would either stack upon the next level up, or she could just spam one of her level 1 spells to get better potency.

The auburn cat look at her avatar's build and applauded her own efforts.

Their conversation about distributing points finally caught the attention of the two males. "Weren't we waiting until level 13?"

"We're level 12, and honestly six levels of backlog is tedious as it is." The girl with amethyst eyes glowered before closing her menu. "You may be used to distributing points left and right, but I'm not."

Mikan chuckled.

EagleEye waved off her concern. He tapped onto his menu before clicking rapidly on where his points were going to be placed. What took the girls 20 minutes, took him a mere 5 minutes. "Why don't we call it a night after we get the Earth Gemstone? We go into the cave, grab the stones we need, and by the time we're done we should be at our respective levels of 15. Hopefully."

The male feline Halfling shrugged. "As long as we're 15 before we leave Mydalr."

"That settles that." Cool_Blue_Sky said to Mikan, and the auburn could only agree to disagree.

* * *

They found the cave with relative ease. The monsters did not pose any real threat to the party after the group had hit level 14. Many of the monsters in the forest ranged from level 7-10. The only thing that happened to be near level 1-3 were the blue slime globs in the opposite direction.

Natsume had performed as the tank for the whole night, taking hit after hit while he trusted their healer to do her job. When she was low on MP, she actually announced that she was starting to get low. There were plenty of times on MMORPGs where he'd be playing online and their healer would forget to mention they were out of MP.

At least they had plenty of time to prepare since Petals had half a brain in strategic planning.

"Hey, I'm running low!" RelicPetals yelled over to EagleEye who brandished an arrow from his quiver. He pulled out a vial of glowing dust before sprinkling it on top of the head. It sparked up into a flame, and then he went to aim.

"Give me two clicks and a shot." He positioned the bow where his arrow aimed at the center mass of their intended target.

The intended target was none other than an angry Ferobear, larger than the typical ones they saw outside. There were two baby cubs behind it, but still attacking them when they got the chance.

Cool_Blue_Sky finished chanting her fire spell, unleashing a vortex of fire to appear beneath the first bear cub. It writhed as it made a critical. Fire damage happened to be this enemies weakness.

Natsume surged sword in hand, as he went to slash at the injured cub. The technical attack he made caused a critical to occur, and it's HP to drop below zero. It was in this moment that EagleEye changed his target to attack the other baby cub.

The Mama Ferobear roared in anger as it realized both of her cubs had just died. A burst of energy formed around the angry Ferobear, almost like a red aura, circled and encompassed the animal. RelicPetals was still waiting for that ether EagleEye promised, so she performed a quick scan while she waited.

She could see the details of the bear, but also its status effect. "Hey, guys this Ferobear is enraged. Attack power has doubled."

EagleEye tossed her that ether she had been waiting for and she chugged the contents down. She noticed her MP bar go significantly higher, but not maxed out. She still needed about 40 more mana to official cap out at max.

"How about its health?" EagleEye yelled as he brought out three arrows. He quickly laced it with his fire powder while Natsume yelled for Cool_Blue_Sky to support him with spells.

"It has about a quarter left. We can do this, let's go guys!" RelicPetals cheered out.

Natsume yelled over her cheer though. "Enough chit chat, focus your attacks on it before it unleashes it's fury swipe. Petals, primary focus on heals. Eagle, distract the enemy enough for Sky and I to attack it with fire. Ready—go!"

They moved in sync, Cool_Blue_Sky chanting an enhancement spell upon his cutlass. The sword glowed a crimson red as he readied for a series of slashes and strikes. When the spell was complete, she signaled to EagleEye. "You're turn Eagle!"

The blonde shot a series of fire volleys to the Ferobear and watched at it crunched down on its HP. It was mere moments away from having less than zero. Natsume took this opportunity to strike.

"Soaring Fire!"

The critical attack was enough to knock the Ferobear over, which led to the final drop of HP. The boss disappeared from sight, leaving only the materials and money behind. RelicPetals prepared her heals for Natsume, and then they continued to the far side of the cavern.

Glowing green and brown gemstones were discovered embedded in the wall. While they only needed one, they didn't know exactly which one would be good enough. Natsume could only prod and pick at the wall until they managed to get three decent sized gemstones.

"And that's a wrap." He replied and noticed the missed announcement from Yuu Tobita. Congratulations on reaching level 15! I've added Battles [Boss Battles] to your tutorial help menu.

"I feel like we have a cheerleader on our side. After every level up we get more knowledge and encouragement." EagleEye replied as he stared down at the chibi version of Yuu Tobita with its dialogue box.

The dialogue box disappeared and another notification popped up.

 _ **Main Quest 1: Report back to Mydalr, and hand over the three materials.**_

 _ **After a vicious battle with a Mama Ferobear and her two cubs, you and your party have finally obtained the last material you needed. You decided to get some well-deserved rest at the Inn. The Earth Gemstone, the Ferobear tusks, and Hides from the wolf now need to go to Vormud.**_

Natsume read the quest and imagined it being read aloud by Yuu Tobita. "The story line even sounds like he is typing it out himself."

RelicPetals pondered, "Well, isn't he supposed to be Chronos' secretary or something? Perhaps he is keeping track of our journey so that Chronos knows how we are faring." She flexed her talon claws when she put away her wand.

"In either event, let's do as the log states and go to the Inn. I'm tired." Cool_Blue_Sky yawned and stretched out her back.

EagleEye led the group while Natsume, Cool_Blue_Sky, and RelicPetals trailed behind. When they exited the cave, they heard a loud shrill cry in the sky. A piercing sound, like an eagle's call in the distant area, enveloped the area.

"Is that the Eagle you mentioned before?" RelicPetals asked to the blonde avian male who looked up to the sky. The trees obscured the view, but that meant they were hidden from view from the Eagle if it happened to fly over above.

"Might be. We should be fine if we do run into it." He shrugged before moving along. "Let's keep moving."

* * *

Natsume slept like a log. The room they rented had all four of them together, but at this point it saved them money. One room cost 300 gold coins, and they altogether possessed over six thousand gold pieces. There was no point in spending extra money for rooms for the male and females. He awoke with the sun, despite only having a few hours of sleep, and felt revitalized.

EagleEye awoke before him, attending to his equipment and cleaning the string on his bow. "You up?"

"Yeah. How long?" Natsume inquired about the time which EagleEye immediately comprehended.

"About three hours. Girls are still out."

Natsume looked over to the curled up ball of Cool_Blue_Sky wrapped in her blanket, and then over to RelicPetals who merely clenched her pillow to her body. She laid on her side, her back facing the entry of the room.

The ruby-eyed male stretched his arms up over his head, feeling the crisp cool air touch his bare skin. His clothes were in tatters after the fight, so he threw them away and called it a night. The only thing that he deemed necessary to keep were his pants and underwear.

"Suppose I should go clothes shopping." He mumbled and EagleEye chuckled. Unlike the Halfling feline with ruby eyes, the Eagle Halfling had escaped with his clothes intact. Cool_Blue_Sky's clothes had some cuts, but nothing that crazy that merited them to get thrown away.

"I'll keep watch if you want to go. You can borrow my mantle by the door to cover up." EagleEye suggested and Natsume decided it was for the best. "I'm taking our funds with me. I won't use more than 1000 gold."

"Do what you need to do." EagleEye commented and waved him goodbye.

The trip to the clothing store wasn't terrible. He found some decent shirts with an additional defense stat boost worth less than 500 gold. When he looked at his pants, he figured they would be fine and went to make his purchase. He brought the shirt up to the front clerk who smiled at him.

"Welcome, what can I get for you?"

"This shirt."

"That'll be 450 gold."

Natsume procured the pieces of gold and gave it to the lady. She counted the coins happily and then offered him a spare room. "If you'd like to change your clothes in the back, you're more than welcome."

He nodded in thanks. He entered the space and put on the shirt. There were no tags to take off, he just had to put it on. When he was finished, he picked up the dropped mantle to reposition back onto his shoulders.

The shop bell jingled, indicating another person had come into the shop. The woman up front said: "Welcome, what can I get for you?" and effectively stopped when the other voice interrupted her.

"Poison resistance armor?"

Natsume could hear the shop owner quibble through her voice. "Uh—n-no sir I don't have those goods here. Maybe in the next village over?"

Nothing more was spoken before the chime of the door and then silence. Natsume opened the back curtain to see the shop clerk shaking in fear. "Are you alright?"

The shop clerk stopped her shaking when she was reminded of her previous customer, and tried to smile back. "Y-yes, how does the shirt fit? Too tight, not too loose?"

Natsume agreed that it fit fine.

"Who was that person earlier?"

The woman waved off his concern. "Oh—nothing, it was one of the adventurers. He—he has some business with Vormud. Should be concluded in two more days or so." The shop clerk merely smiled as if everything would solve itself. "Don't mind me, just a bit tired. Enjoy your day sir!"

Natsume quirked an eyebrow, as his whiskers, tail, and ears perked and twitched. Something did not sit right with him about this. Nothing about the situation seemed right.

"Right—have a good day." He remarked and left the shop. The male Halfling looked up and down the main street to see if someone was nearby, but only he was present. "Strange."

It was then that he remembered about all those side quests Cool_Blue_Sky and EagleEye picked up.

"Might as well do those quests while everyone's still sleeping."

* * *

 **T.K. here!**

Thank you for reading this far into my story! I appreciate your time and consideration! It's kind of one of those slow burn quests that take a LONG time to fulfill; but then again this is the same group that took forever on one part of the tutorial. LOL. I hope you enjoy and we'll see you next time!


	7. Character Growth: RelicPetals

**Chapter 6**

 _ **Character Growth: RelicPetals**_

* * *

 **Disclaimer of the day: I do not own any of the Gakuen Alice characters. Nor any game references made. Enjoy!**

* * *

Several hours later Natsume completed the last of the side requests. He managed to get an additional net value of two thousand gold, adding to a total of seven thousand five hundred and fifty gold pieces, give or take. He meandered his way into the Inn with his tail flicking left and right happily.

Something about completing quests made him feel better on the inside. Or maybe it was the one hundred percent completionist in him.

"Have fun?" EagleEye questioned as he secured the last satchel of stuff for each person to carry in the party. Each person would be responsible for their own specific items, give or take when they entered dungeons. Everything was fair game in dungeons.

"Yeah, finished all the side quests while I was out. Made some more money for us. Here." He tossed the purse over to the male. "Divide it however you please. I would hate for a pickpocket to take our money all at once."

EagleEye nodded. "No problem."

He began to siphon the coins into equal piles, giving the most of the coins to Cool_Blue_Sky. The least amount of coins went to RelicPetals, but again it was for a good reason.

"The girl's up yet?" Natsume noticed Cool_Blue_Sky's bed had been made, but RelicPetals was still out like a light. The soft, subtle breathing could be heard at the front of the room.

"Sky went to get breakfast for herself. She said she had the strange cravings for crab brains. Too bad they don't have that here." The avian male with blond hair finished the packs of money and put them away in a zipped up compartment. He then took his entire satchel and made it disappear into his wrist console. "I never understood how RPGs played with characters carrying over thousands of different materials and objects. Now I know how it was possible. Dimensional pockets."

He earned a chuckled from Natsume who went to RelicPetals' bed to sit on one side. "Game logistics." He reached over and tugged on one of her twitching whiskers. "And time for this one to wake up. We should finish our main quest so that we can be done in Mydalr."

"Five more minutes." Complained RelicPetals and attempted to roll away from the ruby eyed Halfling. Natsume took this as a challenge. He leaned his head over, just where her feline ears were and whispered something into her ear. His reflexes were amazing, especially as a Halfing feline, and immediately pulled himself away as RelicPetals jerked up from her sleeping position.

Her face as bright as a red tomato, she clutched her cover and pillow as if it were her sword and shield. EagleEye watched this strange phenomena with interest before asking what exactly Natsume had said to the girl.

Natsume started to laugh at her disheveled appearance, which only made her more embarrassed.

"What on Earth did you say to Petals?" The Blonde avian gave up trying to guess, and went with the direct approach.

"Well, you see Petals and I—" For a cleric with poor physical reflexes and dexterity, she jumped so fast, he had to stop to think about what had happened. She had all but silenced the black haired boy with her pillow in hand, while grasping his back with her talon claws. Her legs and tail hung delicately on the bed while preventing Natsume from saying anything more than necessary. The male had to yank the pillow from his face so that he could properly breathe.

"Jesus Christ, Mikan you could learn to take a joke." Natsume stopped addressing her by her online name, mostly because his face hurt from the pillow. His HP reflected that total with a negative 1 damage counter against him as well. "I wasn't going to say anything."

"Moeee Natsume, you can't joke around like that!"

EagleEye closed his azure eyes before he himself said something that would instigate a pillow to his own face. "Well—while you two duke it out with pillows, I'm going down for breakfast."

Natsume cringed, still angry at the pillow to the face. "I'm going too, _Petals_ needs time to change."

"Ah, wait Nat—Kuro I didn't mean…" The door closed behind the two boys leaving the auburn feline to collapse into a mess on the floor. Natsume could hear her in the hall still thanks to his heightened hearing. "Damnit all."

* * *

The group gathered together after breakfast ended. Mikan was the last of the group to arrive, her auburn hair still in the same jumbled mess as it had been when she first woke up. Kuroneko and EagleEye were preparing the Earth Gemstone, the tusks, and the hide for Vormud when she announced herself.

"RelicPetals reporting for duty!" She saluted, hoping the small trifle from that morning was long since forgotten. Kuroneko didn't acknowledge her, but EagleEye and Cool_Blue_Sky had.

"We're all here, so what are we waiting for?" Mikan attempted to rouse the somber and quiet member of their group, but nothing seemed to work.

"Vormud will be happy to not have to worry about gathering the materials." Cool_Blue_Sky replied, her amethyst eyes trained on Kuroneko who appeared to be moody. "Let's hope we get the irregularity solved and then move on. This wood and brimstone era is getting boring."

EagleEye smirked at the Dream Indie game creator. "You're bored of almost everything, except maybe the solution of Harold's case."

Cool_Blue_Sky perked at the mention of her game. "Of course I'd be thrilled about Harold. He is my baby."

"Yet you killed his wife." Kuroneko finally replied, and a ghost of a smile appeared on his face. "You monster."

"It had to happen." She reasoned and crossed her arms to nod her head.

"You look like you're trying to convince yourself." EagleEye observed, and got a severe cold and dark leer from the game inventor.

"Sometimes death is a life change that is pivotal for character growth and success. Leave Harold's dead wife alone." Cool_Blue_Sky replied almost instantly.

Mikan chuckled despite her feeling uncomfortable. The group seemed to be focused in on the conversation about ReSolve than about completing the quest. The auburn haired lass offered an alternative for their group so that they didn't need to stop chatting. "Since I initiated the quest, I should probably follow through with it. You guys don't need to worry yourselves."

She gathered the materials while Cool_Blue_Sky and EagleEye merely shrugged. "It doesn't matter either way. We could all go now." The inventor said as she stood up from her chair. EagleEye followed suit but Kuroneko pulled him back down.

"Why don't you two hold down the table. I'll go with Petals to complete the Quest." He went to his menu console and proceeded to open up his messenger. Locking it on, he gave him a thumbs up. "I'll be on messenger if you need us."

EagleEye understood why he really wanted to go, since he witnessed that small trivial thing that morning, and directed Cool_Blue_Sky back to the previous conversation. "But why would killing his wife prove anything? Couldn't he had aspired to become a detective without the killing of his wife. I call Shenanigans."

Kuroneko gave a silent thank you to the blonde before grasping Mikan by her elbow. "Let's hurry up."

The girl wanted to raise a complaint but was led away just as Cool_Bllue_Sky began her long tirade of why it was important for his wife to die. Everyone in their group of friends knew how long she could talk about ReSolve, so it wasn't odd to see this small conversation carry her away.

The two feline Halflings made it outside of the Inn with no problems after that. Mikan held on the objects like they were her lifeline, while Kuroneko walked in front. The store was mere steps away before he stopped short of reaching for the door.

"You're not pushing yourself because of this morning, right? If you are, don't. It was over something stupid after all "

"It isn't stupid!" She retorted, and stopped herself from being escalated. It was then that he realized that she was pushing herself.

"Why are you hiding it in the first place? There's no need to be embarrassed about something like that." He huffed, mostly out of annoyance than anything else.

The question caught her completely off guard. It was obvious that she was rattled by what happened that morning, but she didn't mean to take things too far. "I'm—I'm not pushing myself. I'm fine, really. I made things more difficult than it needed to be. Sorry."

She bent at the waist to complete a proper bow to him in apology. "I'm really sorry for this morning. I just didn't want him to know." She blushed suddenly remembering the whisper in her ear. They twitched at the memory.

"Of what?" Kuroneko paused dramatically, and turned to face her. He gave her a ghost of a smile and she could tell he was being mischievous once again.

"That my smut and yaoi collection is way too damn big for my own good." She mumbled. While she wasn't one for hiding her manga and watching the atypical anime, she did have a sinful batch of yaoi that he happened to come across in her room one day. By sheer coincidence she just happened to forget he was coming over to fix her Orange laptop when it stopped running her otome games. Then he discovered the stash when he pulled her laptop out from under her bed.

Needless to say, it was terrible.

"You can just admit you like to read smutty stuff. It's not the worst thing on the planet."

"Shut up, you will never understand a girl's mind frame!" She yelled, and started to move around him to the shop. She hoped this conversation was over with.

"Glad we settled that." He called over to her as she slammed open the accessory shop's door.

"Good morning!" She talked slightly over Kuroneko's shout out as she entered. She might have startled Vormud who dropped a crate of materials he carried. "Ah! I'm sorry!" She exclaimed, rushing over to help. Kuroneko came in to see the aftermath of Mikan's over exuberant yelp.

"Ahh, the young feline from the other day. How can I help you?" He stammered once his materials were back in the crate. Mikan smiled and gestured by to Kuroneko holding the three items that he needed. "We brought you the materials that you wanted! Now you don't have to worry about being threatened anymore!"

Vormud's brown eyes became saucers. "You—you—actually did that for me!?"

Mikan happily nodded. "Yup!"

Kuroneko placed the materials on the counter for him to inspect. As the goldsmith checked it, he breathed a huge sigh of relief. "Thank you, thank you. I don't know what I would have done if these materials weren't collected. It must have been difficult."

Kuroneko interceded this time. "No, it was fairly easy and it needed to be done."

Vormud smiled. "I can't thank you enough, wait I know!" He rushed over to the glass case and pulled out two pieces of accessories. "I know it's not enough but please accept this garnet bracelet and amulet. It's the least I can do to pay you!"

Mikan smiled when she recognized the slight bent amulet that had been reformed. The garnet bracelet was also the one he repaired as well. "Thank you sir!"

The goldsmith merely waved them off. "I can finish that ring order and that man can finally leave town. Thank the gods. Please, if you excuse me." He gathered the materials Kuroneko put on the counter and brought it into the back of the shop where his workshop was.

Both of their wrist console's buzzed and a notification popped up.

 _ **Main Quest 1: Wait for Vormud to create the Ring of Allocated Time.**_

 _ **You have successfully delivered the materials over to Vormud. He is excited to start the ring he was threatened to make. You are concerned about how the transaction will go, so you wait until the ring is completed.**_

Mikan and Kuroneko read the prompt before turning to one another. _Could this be the irregularity?_ Mikan thought. She closed the notification and almost felt her jaw drop. Beneath the notification happened to be the messenger, and while she didn't have hers locked on…Kuroneko had.

She read in horror the long sentences of Kuroneko's avatar basically retelling the whole ordeal, in words, to her best friends sitting in the Inn.

"Why meeeee!" She yelled aloud, while Kuroneko raised his wrist console.

"I said it would be locked on messenger earlier. Well, now you don't have to worry." He scrolled to the bottom of the script to see Cool_Blue_Sky's and EagleEye's responses.

 **Kuroneko:** _"That my smut and Yaoi collection is way too damn big for my own good."_

 **Kuroneko:** _"You can just admit you like to read smutty stuff. It's not the worst thing on the planet."_

 **EagleEye:** _"Whelp, that answered my question without having asked the question."_

 **Kuroneko:** _"Shut up, you will never understand a girl's mind frame!"_

 **Cool_Blue_Sky:** _"Her web browser history is probably worse. Maybe I should hack into her computer and see for myself."_

 **Kuroneko:** _"Glad we settled tha-GOOOOD MORNING! Ahhhh I'm sorry"_

 **EagleEye:** _"Is it just me, or is it weird seeing Kuro's avatar have such a personality change. I know it's different people talking, but still."_

 **Cool_Blue_Sky: "** _I think it's hilarious. It's like seeing someone with multiple personalities at once"_

 **EagleEye:** _"I think they made it to the accessory shop."_

 **Kuroneko:** _"Ahh, the young feline from the other day. How can I help you?"_

 **Kuroneko:** _"We brought you the materials that you wanted! Now you don't have to worry about being threatened anymore!"_

 **Kuroneko:** _"You—you—actually did that for me!?"_

 **Kuroneko:** _"Yup!"_

 **EagleEye:** _"He sounds so shocked that we actually did it."_

 **Cool_Blue_Sky:** _"Or maybe he thought a cleric became a BAMF adventurer with a swashbuckler and killed the beasts herself."_

 **Cool_Blue_Sky:** _"That's nice how the system recognized BAMF."_

 **EagleEye:** _"Woah, could you imagine a buffed up Petals. She'd blast the place sky high."_

 **Kuroneko:** _"Thank you, thank you. I don't know what I would have done if these materials weren't collected. It must have been difficult."_

 **Kuroneko:** _"No, it was fairly easy and it needed to be done."_

 **Kuroneko:** _"I can't thank you enough, wait I know! I know it's not enough but please accept this garnet bracelet and amulet. It's the least I can do to pay you!"_

 **Cool_Blue_Sky:** _"Dibs on amulet."_

 **Kuroneko:** _"Thank you sir!"_

 **Kuroneko:** _"I can finish that ring order and that man can finally leave town. Thank the gods. Please, if you excuse me."_

 **EagleEye:** _"So after reading the quest update, what should we do?"_

 **Cool_Blue_Sky:** _"Discuss Petals favorite boy on boy collection. Obviously."_

 **EagleEye:** _"I wonder what she'd do if she realized their entire conversation had been recorded."_

 **Cool_Blue_Sky:** _"Well, we'll find out in a moment. I bet she'll scream."_

 **Kuroneko:** _"Why meeeeee!"_

 **Kuroneko:** _"I said it would be locked on messenger earlier. Well, now you don't have to worry."_

 **Cool_Blue_Sky:** _"Wow, her voice echoed all the way into the Inn."_

 **EagleEye:** _"Good thing I didn't agree to that bet."_

* * *

T.K. here, thank you very much for all the reviews and comments for this story! I know I didn't respond to several of them last time, so I will take the opportunity to answer some of them now! I started a new position recently as well, so my updates may get a bit sporadic as I try to hone in times to conjure, create, and flesh out this story. We're coming up to the end of this first arc! How exciting, it's almost like a dungeons and dragons compaign but the GM is everyone haha. Alright here's to everyone's comments!

 **Wind of SilentBell:** Yes cooking should be very inventive as we continue with the group through the quests. I imagine Ruka will be pleased to go back to his vegetarian diet when he learns the cooking skills. We'll probably have a short bit on that sooner or later haha. :) Now to answer some of your questions: **Will their main quest change depending on where they are going and who they meet?** **And what's the goal of this game again?** Yes! It'll be explained a bit more in the new quest, and it should also answer you question about the goal of the game. Although I do not mind discussing the goal again, when they were brought in to beta testing in the first chapter, the company leaders Luna and Kouji did not elaborate on the game plot. They basically let Yuu Tobita explain what the story is during the tutorial.

 _Your objective is to collect these broken pieces of time and return it to Chronos, the God of Time. He has pre-selected you as his champions to complete his mission. There are many enemies that will try to manipulate the time, but it is your duty to collect the time pieces back. This will restore time back to normal in that world and you will travel to another set location._

It should become clear in this next chapter, along with other things as well! As for the parallel world comment... Hrmmmmm, I wonder... =D

How much time has past in the real world... That is a tough question to answer right now, seeing as it could spoil the future parts of the story. I hope you will continue to read the rest of the story! It should be revealed at the near end of the story though!

 **Gemini-Naps-Dragon-At-Heart5:** Thank you very much for all of your reviews so far! I was extremely appreciative of all of your comments and suggestions! I actually started this story based on two points: to focus and hone in on descriptions (Its not my strongest suit) and because I really liked the concept of the new Jumanji film. I will definitely try my best to describe the setting of the towns and areas better. I wanted to focus on that particularly in this story. The cards do have a significant importance to the story, which should be explained soon. And I know for sure Koko and Sumire will have an opportunity to get involved with our group of adventurers! The aliases that I came up with have some tie-in to their characters in the Gakuen Alice setting. Ruka's was because of the Eagle he had in the very first manga volume, but the poor eagle never really showed back up. I figured a 24-25 year old guy would use Eagle's instead of bunnies as an alias. Haha I'm positive Hotaru used this against him numerous times. There should be a switch up between there aliases and real names soon, it'll probably happen within the next two arcs or so. Tsubasa and Tono-huuuuueeehh, yeah that's a story that will get explained soon as well. If anything, they did get the short end of the stick in this event.

 **SunBabyBoss:** My inspiration came from lots of different things-I came up with VRGE sitting (more like laying/bumming) off my best friends couch. I was running away from a lot of things going on in my personal life so the idea of getting trapped in a video game seemed like a good escape to write about. The concept for the first quest came from playing DnD with my group of friends. But it's completely different story plot than what we participated in. Haha, recently I've been indulging in LoadingReadyRun's Dice Friends, which gives me great ideas for future stories-or just get the creative juices flowing. I also wrote this story as a means of improving my writing skills.

I'm happy to have read each and every one of your reviews! Thank you for all your guidance and support! I hope you enjoyed this recent chapter!

 **T.K. Signing out.**


	8. Persona

_**Chapter 7**_

 _ **Persona**_

* * *

All four party members were sitting around the table at the inn for lunch. Natsume enjoyed watching as RelicPetals went to defend her shojo-yaoi-bishounen stuff while Cool_Blue_Sky fully intended to know all the juicy details. EagleEye just shook his head, as if disapproving of the content of the manner.

"Uke and Seme are the best types. you can't _not_ like them!" RelicPetals exclaimed to the other girl while EagleEye finally choked on his food. Cool_Blue_Sky went to defend her piece.

"I hate to disappoint you, but Riba couples are the best."

"I feel like I've learn a brand new side of you Petals. Like the veil is being pulled from my eyes."

Natsume hid his laughter behind a pawed claw. "You should have seen our PM's afterward. Since the discovery of her collection, our relationship completely changed. Totally made it better."

RelicPetals lifted a wooden spoon up and pointed it darkly to him. "What I said in PM is completely and irrevocably not allowed to be discussed at this lunch table."

Cool_Blue_Sky looked between Kuroneko and EagleEye. RelicPetals seemed to have gotten then what she was trying to imply. "Definitely UkexSeme. You can't argue with me on this one!"

EagleEye regained his composure long enough to catch both the girls glancing between the two of them. Natsume merely sighed before crossing his arms. "No. I'm not having you try and imagine me with my best friend. Just like how I don't imagine you with your best friend." He shared his piece sternly.

"Well I can already tell you. If we were males, Cool_Blue_Sky would be the Uke. Hands down."

Natsume quirked an eyebrow. "Let me guess, you'd be seme?"

RelicPetals nodded. "So it's not terrible to speculate. Don't you want to know?"

The ruby eyed feline declined. "No."

"But it's purrrly speculation." RelicPetals purred, and was immediately shut down.

"No. And another no because of that purr pun."

Cool_Blue_Sky snapped her fingers as if disappointed. "Damn."

"Moving on," EagleEye finally responded, as he was finished with his meal. "How long do you think it will take to finish the ring?"

Natsume looked at his wrist console and then back at the door. "We could just walk over there. It's not like it's too far."

He stood up from the table, as if the signal that was the end of that conversation, and headed toward the door. EagleEye, Cool_Blue_Sky, and RelicPetals all gathered their belongings to follow after him. When he pushed open the Inn doors, a large gust of purple mist rushed in and swirled around.

Natsume covered his face, not liking the scent, taste, or color of this mist. Even as he took a step outside, he could feel the gusts of wind pick up and heavily soar through the main village space.

Cool_Blue_Sky choked on the air, while EagleEye eyes began to water.

As the winds died down, Natsume and his party of friends could see a lone male figure standing in the linear dirt road wearing a white mask covering pure white porcelain skin. His raven black hair, unkempt and wild, almost like the aura around him. His wardrobe also matched his dark hair color, wearing nothing but simplistic black. His hands adorned a multitude of rings, mostly silver. There laid a person on the dusty ground, his lifeless form happened to be the familiar person of the accessory shop; Vormud.

Natsume's negative feeling intensified. "Get your weapons ready." He called out and rushed out to the middle of the street. EagleEye followed suit of Natsume's dash while Cool_Blue_Sky stayed clear of the front lines. RelicPetals went into the middle of the group to help support healing spells if they needed it.

The first to approach the man standing in the street was none other than the ruby eyed leader. He drew his cutlass and stood in an offensive stance. "Who are you, and why did you threaten Vormud for that ring." Natsume couldn't tell if the accessory maker was alive or dead at this point due to the fact he wasn't moving.

The male in question merely knelt down to grab hold of the lifeless body in his search. He seemed to have finally found what he looked for, and easily tossed the man to the side. Vormud's back knocked into several wooden boxes, collapsing the sides under the weight.

RelicPetals went running to his side, almost immediately, and tried a healing spell. "Cure!"

The man with the silver rings chuckled darkly. "I'd hardly waste mana on a dead man."

RelicPetals realized that her spell didn't work, and then turned a horrified glance back to the man standing alone. "You killed him, but why?! He did what you asked!" She immediately recognized the voice of the assailant when she first stumbled upon the transaction.

"You must have been that eavesdropper that day, I see." He merely replied and revealed in his clenched hand the ring that Vormud had made with the materials. "I have to thank you. If it weren't for you and your friends, I would be without the Ring of Allocated Time."

Natsume clenched his cutlass in his palm. "Sorry, but that ring doesn't belong to you. It belonged to Vormud, but since you killed him I suppose it goes to us. Hand it over, douchebag." The feline male did not take well to antagonist's who murdered for no reason.

Cool_Blue_Sky summoned her own wand and began to chant. "Go ahead and attack him Kuro, talking won't settle anything."

EagleEye brought forth his bow and readied his shot. "I didn't know Vormud, but he seemed like a semi-decent guy. You'll pay for taking his life."

Their enemy in the road just laughed at their commens. RelicPetals cast scan on him, but noticed something odd. The aura around the ring he carried was different, not to mention the fact that his HP/MP bars were all question marks.

"Guys…GUYS, He doesn't have—!" She yelled, but before she could say anything more he silenced her with a swift hand stroke. A black whip emerged and cracked against RelicPetals' right cheek. The force of the blow was enough to send her flying away from Vormud and past the three standing fighters.

Cool_Blue_Sky gaped in horror before turning to look back at their friend. She was unconscious in the dirt, her HP bar barely survived the hit. She was straddling the zero with barely two HP left.

"My name's Persona." He murmured and cracked his whip again. The sky erupted into dark clouds and purple mist began to billow down from the area. From within the clouds, a large bird emerged. It's shape was not solid, but rather a gaseous state. Purple clouds continued to pour out with each wing stroke it created.

The down stroke of the wings caused whirlwinds of the same purple smoke to flow into town. People who were in the streets in Mydalr started to drop to their knees. They were choking on the purple mist that swirled around them. The huts and makeshift buildings near the center of the whirlwind had started a slow melt from the roof down.

"And this ring is one of the many offerings I offer to the Goddess Lumina. Your God of Time Chronos will never succeed in winning this war. Now, do me one last favor and die!" Persona called out to his large bird of smoke which then screeched boisterously.

RelicPetals slowly arose off the ground, her cheek ached against the strike as she used cure upon herself. Cool_Blue_Sky went back to facing their opponent, only she suddenly realized she felt terrible.

Her legs buckled underneath her, and she started to violently hack. Soon the others were doing the same as she, collapsing to their knees and struggling to stay up.

"Ah, I see the poison is finally setting in. This whole town is as good as dead."

Natsume coughed up blood when he pulled himself back up to stand, he had not realized how poison affected their bodies until that very much. _What do we have against poison? Anything?_

It was at this moment he heard Petals yell: "Esuna!" A large gust of pure clean air gushed through the purple mist, dissipating it and stopping to swirl around his body. When he realized she had cured him of his poison, he knew what he had to do.

"Petals, keep healing at maximum output. EagleEye, bring that eagle down. Sky, you keep an eye on MP levels." Natsume shouted before lunging forward, he did his best not to get buried deep in the pockets of the poison mist, and charged straight for Persona.

* * *

"Esuna! Esuna!" Mikan cast again and again, "Esuna!" She cast once more on herself and then charged up her next spell.

"I call upon the purest winds to blow through. Aero!" She summoned gushes of white magic wind to push out all of the poison mist in the central area. Meanwhile EagleEye laced his arrows with his special fire crackle concoction.

"Here's hoping it's weak to fire." He stretched his bow before releasing the arrow into the sky. The large gaseous bird from above screeched as the fire combusted a part of his wing upon contact. "Fire seems to be the magic trick. Sky, prepare your stronger fire spell. I'll keep it distracted."

Mikan glanced over to Kuroneko's fighting and noticed he was barely able to keep up with Persona. The whip danced blithely around him, almost like a scorching dance of tango. She noticed a small increment of health had been chipped away from the question marks, but not as much as Kuroneko would have liked.

She raised her wand up and shouted, "Cure!" as she targeted him with the spell.

Persona merely jumped back from Kuroneko's lunging form and readied his hand holding the ring. He was still going strong, and he was only using his left hand to crack the whip.

"I didn't think your healer was that strong, she dissipated my poison with her spells." He sighed before turning his attention to the ring. "It's unfortunate I have to use this on the likes of you, but it will save me the trouble later of having to defeat you."

Persona smirked before chanted, "Ring of Allocated Time, bring to me the sands of time from this boy!"

Kuroneko watched the ring slowly darken under his grasp. The aura that encompassed the ring had grown larger and larger until it finally grew into a huge circular dome. Dark matter pushed upon his body until he dropped to his knees. In front of his wrist console, the warning symbols were going off. It blared and beeped at him as if he were close to death. He stared horrified as the dark matter brought out his own hourglass and the glass started to shake abruptly. The sands inside were slowly slipping out from it, and he felt weaker. He noticed his infinity symbol start to flicker, and the sands of time started to enter into Persona's ring.

"You'll soon be as if you never existed." Persona called out over the screams Kuroneko created.

Mikan knew that EagleEye and Cool_Blue_Sky would be fine on their own, so she darted past them to where she saw Kuroneko in trouble. She noticed her own wrist console vibrating, warning her not to get too close. There was no other option as she charged in with her hand held up. Her wrist console lit up as she screamed: "Natsume!"

A bright flash of light exploded from her console and everything turned gray in color. The other thing that happened to be vibrant in color happened to be the bright, shiny god hovering above Persona's frozen form. Mikan watched in shocked awe as his brilliance shined almost enough to blind her. She tried to glimpse past the light toward his face, but she felt more blinded the harder she tried.

"Child of Chrona, the will of your perseverance has been blessed with the powers of Chronos. Use your power wisely, for if you run out of time, you will be lost to it forever. Now, destroy the Ring of Allocation."

Mikan saw a small timer appear in her peripheral. Fifteen seconds. She only had fifteen seconds to destroy the ring. She raised her wand up before charging in like she pictured Kuroneko would. She screamed her best warrior cry and before the timer hit ten seconds, she had already slammed the wand into the gem of the ring. It shattered upon impact, and time snapped back into place.

Mikan's own wand cracked under the pressure, but the dark matter surrounding the three of them quickly dissolved. Kuroneko collapsed to the ground, and his wrist console finally quieted. She would have breathed a sigh of relief before a hand violently clutched her throat.

She stared up at the man in front of her, and she could see his dark onyx eyes behind his white mask.

He was royally pissed.

"You—How did you destroy the ring! You can barely stand an attack so how!?" He didn't allow her a chance to talk, depriving her of the very oxygen she needed to survive. It was in that moment that he noticed the shining light within her wrist console.

"Chronos, you filthy instigator! I will kill your chosen one right before your eyes!" He all but screamed. Mikan barely attempted to bat his hand off her throat, but she was not strong enough to have him release her.

"Let her go!" An arrow shot straight at Persona, and had he continued to hold her, he would have been hit. He jumped out of the way, with her still in his grasp. He was about to inflict the last bit of damage against her but stopped. From Mikan's view, she could see a small message screen pop up and saw his face darken at the sight of it. He grimaced and glowered, but he did not argue with what had been sent to him.

Almost in reflex, he tossed the girl to the side and heard the delayed crunch of the wall crumple under her weight. She dangerously hovered in the low 2-3 HP range after the throw.

"It seems my Goddess Lumina has offered her grace upon your worthless lives. But trust me when I say, we will meet again and I will kill you." Persona closed his eyes and darkness encompassed his body. Before Cool_Blue_Sky and EagleEye could react, the man had disappeared in a black wall of shadow.

With the battle over, a wash of experience rushed over everyone. Mikan could hear her console chime as it congratulated her on her level ups.

 _ **Congratulations on making it to level 18!**_

 _ **Here is a tutorial on how to use Active Bursts [Stop Time].**_

With the increase in level, she too also gained back all of her health and mana. Whenever they grew a level, they would instantly heal all wounds. She noticed the broken wall behind her and she groaned as the phantom pain still played a common effect on her mind.

Kuroneko had been pulled up by EagleEye, and though he was shaky, he managed to pull out his hourglass. The sands of time that had been stolen had somehow been returned after the ring had been destroyed.

A holographic figure appeared in front of the party with a huge smile. He wore round glasses, and his hair was the same dirty blonde as his avatar in the console. It appeared Yuu Tobita had appeared to greet them.

"Good Afternoon, or should I say good evening! Congratulations on fixing the irregularity. With that, Mydalr should return back to normal. Please hold up your hourglasses." Yuu smiled, and with a flick of his hand all of their hourglasses had been filled with purple colored sand. "The God of Time, Chronos did not anticipate Lumina's henchman to have caused this irregularity, so he graciously stepped in to help you succeed. Now, please use your hourglasses to activate the sand to your next quest."

Yuu disappeared while the group stood in dumbfounded horror. Mikan stared at her wrist console, and then went to grasp her throat. She could feel the pain of Persona's grip still clenching against her vocal cords.

Kuroneko stared at his hourglass, seeing the time of sand he had, and felt he had been merely moments away from actually dying.

"This—doesn't feel like a game anymore." Mikan replied as she lightly felt her neck.

Cool_Blue_Sky went over to examine her neck. "We need to be extra careful from now on. If we make any mistake..."

"Let's not start that." EagleEye remarked before looking to Kuroneko. "Are you alright?"

"Hn." It seemed to Mikan that he was not avoiding the issue, but trying to keep the group from falling apart.

EagleEye and Cool_Blue_Sky clenched their fists as if they had nothing else to add. They had just witnessed firsthand the destructive power that their potential main enemy possessed. Mikan was also curious about this world's system and wondered who this Goddess Lumina was. It almost sounded like someone she knew. She would have to see if there were some reference materials available in this game to put the scrambled facts together.

Kuroneko looked to the blackened logout button on his console before he clenched his fist. A notification popped up on their wrist consoles, and they all silently looked to each other.

The one to break the silence was Kuroneko as he raised his console in the air. "Come on, let's complete this quest." The four of them counted down, before effectively pressing the "accept" button on their wrist. A bright white light enveloped them as they shifted between the dimensions of time and space.

* * *

 _ **Main Quest 1: Complete!**_

 _ **You and your friends fought a perilous fight against a new foe. He has introduced himself as Persona, who worships the Goddess of Creation Lumina. You stopped the poison mist from consuming and destroying Mydalr, and prevented Persona from taking away the Ring of Allocation. Your group decides to find a safe place to rest until the next irregularity becomes evident. As you accept your next destination, your hourglass transports you and your party to Bellcester Shore.**_

* * *

 _ **T.K. HERE!**_

 _ **WOW, first quest done and we are well on our way to the next main quest! I hope you have enjoyed so far! Here's to new adventures!**_

 ** _Wind of SilentBell:_** I'm really glad you are enjoying the story so far! I thought Mikan's collection would have more of an impact compared to any other thing. Haha she's such an innocent lamb. Haha Hotaru really does enjoy talking about things that she's invested and intrigued with. Plus Crab brains. I am hoping she will continue to grow as we get further into the story! :)

 **SunBabyBoss:** Thank you Kindly! I am definitely enjoying my work-definitely different from what I had done previously! Life is swell! :)

 **RandomGuest:** Welcome! I am glad to hear that you have enjoyed! Yes, this story is slightly different than Sword Art Online. (After one of the few comments about SAO, I finally watched it). I CAN say that this fiction won't really be similar to SAO schematics... hopefully. Haha. That is a good question about the chapter title-To be honest I didn't have a title for it but it could change later on. Or I'll incorporate this tiny fact of title in the next few chapters. Everything has a purpose!


	9. Bellcester Shore

Chapter 8

 **Bellcester Shore**

* * *

 **T.K. Here!**

Second Arc and more information gurgling! I hope you all enjoy! I don't own any characters or story resmblances to Gakuen Alice. All of that belongs to Tachibana Higuchi. Likewise all game references and communities belong to their respectful owners and copyrights. :) Now without further ado

* * *

Beautiful, crystal clear water churned and crashed into the sandy white beaches that surrounded Bellcester Shore. The furry pads of his feet felt the cool, crisp liquid swish and pull around him as it retreated back into the ocean. Behind him, he could hear Cool_Blue_Sky rushing into the ocean. The footfalls of her humanoid avatar dressed in matching, patterned beachwear were heavy as the water splashed up.

"Fresh crab, fresh crab!" She called out with purple bright-eyed excitement.

"You don't see that every day," the blonde avian avatar remarked aloud next to the black haired feline Halfling. He rubbed his down feathers to fix its ruffled state from the previous combat. "How are you holding up Kuro?" His attire had been changed into what seemed to be floral swimming trunks and a festive Hawaiian looking shirt.

Natsume picked up a small turtle that had poked its tiny self in between his black furred paw feet. Carefully he brought the small creature to the edge of the water and let it go. "My condition says Exhausted, probably from the last combat. It'll probably be healed up with rest." He noticed that his attire had changed to match what he had already witnessed on his teammates avatars nearby. The bright colored attire definitely did not match anything he would have chosen for clothing.

"So we should avoid combat?" EagleEye remarked as he witnessed Cool_Blue_Sky's avatar pulling what he assumed was the crab she spotted when she first settled into this new land. He had then watched RelicPetals go out into the water to help assist her in the endeavor. Her beach outfit consisted of polka-dotted patterned swimwear. The one piece allowed the small female Halfling's room for her tail to escape. They were thigh deep into the water, the calmness of the area was welcome comparatively to the previous Viking realm of Mydalr.

"Preferably." He noted moments before watching RelicPetals and Cool_Blue_Sky started yanking on something underneath the water. While the water was supremely clear and calm, the area they were at stayed beyond his sight. Their teamwork pulled up the mysterious thing which caused his feline ears to perk in curiosity. And then they began to twitch as the ground and white sand shook.

The girls fell backward into the swirling water as the thing they pulled up happened to not be just any crab, but a monster blue and green mossed crab with a monstrously large claw. RelicPetals scrambled back in the water, sputtering water from her mouth while Cool_Blue_Sky gazed in pure greed. It was a giant crab, and if Natsume knew her well, he knew that she was intent on having crab brains.

Natsume and EagleEye pulled out their weapons from their wrist consoles, the exasperated look upon their avatars showed a mixture of disapproval, irritation, and 'You have got to be kidding me'.

Cool_Blue_Sky and RelicPetals made their way back to the shore. Their splashing was the only thing obnoxiously attracting the crab to their location. Natsume glowered at both the girls who retreated behind them. Cool_Blue_Sky didn't seem upset by the sudden encounter, but RelicPetals knew that look well. "You better hope this isn't a level 20 + monster you two scrounged up." He called back to them but the greedy purple-eyed ReSolve creator happily brought out her rod.

She started her casting of black magic as she thought of roasting crab brains of a nice campfire. "Don't worry, I always finish what I start." She chirped this happily which caused Natsume to shake his head. EagleEye unleashed three arrows into the fleshy bits of the exposed crab. The roar of the beast shook the area with soft vibrations.

"Petals, start a scan of the monster." Natsume finally gave up as he witnessed the burning fire of passion in Cool_Blue_Sky's avatar and EagleEye's pursuit to end the threat quickly. All Natsume cared about was to end this battle before his exhaustion condition affected his attack and strength modifiers.

* * *

Cool_Blue_Sky engaged in her piping bowl of fresh crab brains that finished cooking over their makeshift campfire on the beach. She looked the happiest she'd ever been when taking that first bite of crab brains since they first entered the facility.

Kuroneko sat by the heat of the fire, wringing the water out of his hideously disgusting festive shirt while EagleEye practiced making vegetarian skewers. The previous items they had gathered in Mydalr stayed with them, and the newest items collected on the shore also helped in his pursuit for veggie style skewers.

Mikan fidgeted by Kuroneko, she could tell from his deliberate twists and squeezing of his shirt that he was not pleased by the latest turn of events. Luckily for them, the large crab was just level 17. It was a definite welcome battle comparatively to Persona back in Mydalr. She could still remember seeing stars when that man's whip cracked against her cheek. Though what terrified her the most happened to be Kuroneko's agonized screams as that man somehow started to pull the sand in his personal hourglass thanks to that ring Vormud had created.

The feline Halfling had destroyed the ring, bringing the fury back to her once more, and those piercing onyx eyes… Mikan shivered at the memories.

"Aren't you going to eat?" The disgruntled male beside her plucked out two piping hot skewers EagleEye had just crafted. Jostled from the previous quest, she accepted the skewer and took the first bite of what she knew was a piece of roasted tomato.

"This is good, a bit flavorless." EagleEye replied as he finished his second skewer. A small shower of experience rushed over him and granted him a slightly higher cooking skill in veggie skewers.

"Maybe some seasoning?" Kuroneko replied, his wet shirt still dripping by the fire. The heat from the flame would hopefully dry it soon.

"It'f miff'ng crab brainf." Came the estute and stuffed mouth of Cool_Blue_Sky.

Mikan stifled a chuckle as she bit into the fleshy and juicy pieces of pineapple.

"Okay, now that our stomachs and minds are at ease." EagleEye ignored the crab brains comment and went into the order of things. "I've noticed from our last quest to now, that what are supposed to be NPCs aren't quite… NPC material. In fact, it appears to me that we are quite foreign to their way of life."

Mikan remembered how the guardsmen acted when she called out Cool_Blue_Sky's avatar name during the conversation.

"Speaking of that," EagleEye assessed, "I think before we reach the town of Bellcester Shore, we should agree that our aliases are pointless. I mean, it's difficult for other people to remember things such as RelicPetals and Kuroneko."

Kuroneko seemed to be in agreement. He let his hand holding the skewer of half-eaten food down to speak. "If that's all, we can just call each other informally like we would in public." While they did call each other by their online pennames a majority of the time, they did still know each person's identity fairly well outside of their gaming community.

"So—we should call Kuroneko as Natsume, Cool_Blue_Sky as Hotaru, and EagleEye as Ruka?" Mikan surmised when Kuro finished his statement. "That may take some time to get used to." She admitted before eating her skewered meal.

"Jus' 'eep 'ractic'ng," Cool_Blue_Sky said once again with her mouth full of crab brains. When she swallowed her full bite, she looked to the auburn feline with a small smile. "Mikan."

The girl that was called felt her face go red and she had a rushed feeling of bliss as her best friend online finally called her by her first name in what seemed like weeks. Almost in a "Nyaaa" cat-like reaction, Mikan smiled brightly to the black haired, purple eyed creator. "Yes?"

"'ractic'ng." Cool_Blue_Sky replied as she stuff a spoonful of her food into her mouth again. Mikan didn't mind and felt the pure happiness rise within her. Just one word from her friend made her day.

"Girls are weird." Kuroneko replied and finished his forgotten skewer. "Ruka, pass me another skewer."

"Sure thing." The blonde avian replied. Mikan watched the exchange as he handed the male Halfling a skewer. "Great thing that was settled quickly, now onto the next item. If you all can access your Character Growth pages in the menu, everyone should notice the change like I did right away."

Kuroneko and Cool_Blue_Sky did as EagleEye instructed and saw under Mikan's avatar one filled circle under her name. In that moment, the black haired male tapped on her highlighted profile and noticed that he could now do a special team attack with her.

"I guess because we learned of Mikan's secret early on in Mydalr, we grew as a team." Cool_Blue_Sky replied as she stared at her console. "This is an interesting special attack."

The auburn blinked at the comment, but did not see the same page as her teammates had. Her page still had no filled circles on any of her friends. In that moment, she felt the flick of a furred tail brush up against her resting tail on the ground. She peered over to Kuroneko who seemed intrigued by the special attack option as well.

"I am liking our combo." EagleEye replied with a smile, " **Arrows of Light,** very flashy."

" **Swirling Swords**." The red eyed ruby read, and continued with the description. " **Special attack between Kuroneko and RelicPetals where a myriad of wind-styled swords tornados into a group of enemies**."

Cool_Blue_Sky whistled, and rested her chin upon her upward palm. She smiled to Mikan as she chuckled. "You and I will be experiencing quite the fun attack shortly. I'm excited for our next all-out attack!" She smiled brightly and Mikan could only feel the concern rise within her.

"Character growth is equally just as important as building up our character levels. Perhaps we should be more aware of character growth situations and events." EagleEye suggested with a bright smile. "Although learning of your yaoi collection is a bit of an extreme to character growth."

Mikan finished her skewer and reached for the second to last stick by the fire. Her embarrassment on her collection seemed like a distant past memory. "Eagle-I mean Ruka." She corrected herself before the male smiled in her direction. "Unless you would like me to find your deepest, darkest secret tonight, I suggest we forget about my collections."

"If you'd look at your wrist consoles." EagleEye replied immediately after her shift threat. While Mikan may not be able to fish the information out of him, she was quite positive Hotaru would have that blackmail on him. He closed the Character Growth page after explaining the schematics and jumped to the main quest page. Everyone directed their attention to their next Quest, but instead of saying **Main Quest 2** , it said

 **SubQuest: Bellcester Shore**

 **Your party has just arrived on the quiet sands of Bellcester Shore. You have vanquished a rare and valuable monster that has terrorized the shores of Bellcester recently. You noticed that this monster crab is unusual for its breed, and way too mature for its species in this area. You suspect that a time irregularity is the cause for the abnormality. Making camp for the night, you take a rest and plan to ask around the Docks of Bellcester Shore to the Northeast.**

Mikan finished reading the description aloud for all of them to hear. "Uh, we knew it was unusual for its breed?"

Cool_Blue_Sky smiled happily, giving the crab food a thumbs up. "It tasted great. 9 out of 10 points."

Kuroneko sighed, waving the two of them off with his black paw. "Everything seems abnormal, but the quests are supposed to keep us on track."

EagleEye nodded, pulling his knapsack to his side to rummage around the infinite space that was the bag. "Natsume, why don't we set up the tents and go do what the menu asks us in the morning. We'll also get rid of your Exhaustion condition." Kuroneko got up from the sand, wiping away the sand that clung to his furry legs with his tail.

"Make sure mine and Hotaru's have fluffy pillows!" Mikan called out to them. The sardonic expression that crossed the face of the feline Halfling made her freeze mid-bite.

"You better be prepared for tomorrow, because we're going to grind levels like you've never done before." The dark circles were quite evident on his face as his red ruby eyes darkened.

Mikan's veggie that settled between her lips and mouth fell out as his threat fell upon her ears. Cool_Blue_Sky sighed as she wiped her face with the napkin she procured from her own knapsack. "If we train until a god-awful overkill level, I will publish your smut collection for the whole game community to see."

The auburn gaped in horror knowing full well the threats on both sides closing her into a tight corner. "Kuroneko wait!" She scrambled as she rushed over to the two males in their party. "Let me help you with the set up! Teamwork makes the dreamwork!" She panicked when he continued to ignore her. EagleEye chuckled at her attempts to appease the exhausted feline as they crafted the tent.

* * *

Mikan awoke to the rustle of her tent flap opening. She saw the light peek in from the sun rising and the bright blonde wisps of hair that belonged to EagleEye. "Is it time to wake up?" She murmured and stretched up from her bedroll. Laying in a caterpillar-like sleeping bag was Cool_Blue_Sky but with it zipped all the way up past her hairline made it hard to wake her using light.

The tent was only a two person tent, where the bed rolls laid fairly next to one another. The top of the tent was just tall enough to fit an average size human.

"Kur—Natsume is still sleeping. I was planning on heading to the Docks while these two were sleeping. Did you want to join me?" Mikan looked back to the slumbering Cool_Blue_Sky and realized the boredom she'd feel if she were to sit around. The waiting around part seemed too boring for the girl.

"Yeah! Will they be alright from like monsters or passerby's?" She genuinely thought of their safety if there wasn't going to be able to keep watch. EagleEye seemed to take her concern seriously as he waved a small bottle of repellent.

"I sprayed some monster repellent around the camp just now, should last for the remainder of the day, as for people going by—I think we're secluded on the shore." He smiled at Mikan. "You ready?"

She scrambled to get her stuff together, "Yeah, hang on!"

* * *

Mikan and EagleEye arrived to the Main Dock with little to no resistance. They battled small crab monsters, these kelpie-like sea weed creatures, and one of the floating sharks that popped up from the sea during their travel. The area level ranged around 12-15. Nothing too big or scary for two players running around. Ruka peered down at his wrist console, securing their items and objects out of sight.

"Anything change on the mission directory?" Mikan asked him as they walked through the pier entry. There were four guards standing by the sides checking persons entering the area. Above their heads were long lines of kites in the skies. The ocean breeze carried the string of brightly colored dragon sails, streamers of different shapes and sizes, fishes and boats, flags, and banners. Fabric Ribbons decorated all over the port city and buildings. The ground was colored white asphalt, prettily consisted of polished stones. Building garnished similar styles of stones embedded in the buildings as the walk ways.

"Nothing from what I glimpsed." He replied and they soon were ushered to the first available guard.

"Welcome to Bellcester Shore, can I see your identification?" The guard replied and Mikan blinked in confusion.

"Identification?"

EagleEye also gave them a puzzled look, not knowing what type of identification they may need.

"Do you or do you not have identification?" The guard, who seemed amicable at first, turned aggressive just as quickly as the lull of the waves.

Before the two could respond, a feminine voice perked up by Mikan's side. The feline Halfling felt her pawed arm being picked by as the mysterious strange spoke. "Here's her identification sir, she's a bit slow."

EagleEye's azure eyes widened as he saw permed green hair bob up as she smiled gleefully.

"Perms?!" Both of them yelled in unison as the guard looked at her wrist console. A small id popped up on the screen as the officer made his notes. He then pulled out a purple wrist colored strap and handed it to her.

"This is your entry to and from, don't lose this." He explained to her, slowly enough that it made Mikan feel dumb. "Keep moving, we have more individuals to check in."

EagleEye and Mikan ushered forward once they were given their straps, and then turned immediately onto the new girl in their entourage.

"Perms! What are you doing here!?" Mikan almost shouted to the girl's avatar that read **P3rms43v**. "Are you alright? Did you run into any trouble? Can you logout? What can you gather from everything? How's your game data? What is your opinion of our God of Time Chronos? What do you know about the Goddess of Creation Lumina? What is going on?!" During her tirade of questioning, the auburn grasped the green haired avatar's shoulders and shook them as she bombarded. Ruka had to step in to prevent Mikan from dealing any damage to Perms.

When EagleEye managed to get Mikan away from the girl did she rubbed her shoulders where she was gripped painfully. "What on Earth are you talking about, isn't this the first level for everyone? And Isn't Chronos the God of Time for the Purple cards? Remember, I have green. Our group is supporting Feronia, Goddess of Abundance. Also I literally just saw Shadow and his new group of friends just finish the area and move on. Apparently your group is the last one to arrive." She flicked her manicured fingers up to examine them. "You haven't complimented me on my Bard avatar, you know how long it took me to create her? I see you decided to be a cat, matching Kuro much?"

Both Mikan and EagleEye scrutinized this new information.

"Uh—Per—Sumire," EagleEye decided to drop all online usernames since last night. This caused the girl to blush at his calling. "You said this is the first level? How long have you been logged in?"

Sumire in all her bikini-clad glory stood with confidence. The wrap around skirt on her waist matched the color of her wavy green hair. "Koko and I arrived with our party just this morning from the Land of Time tutorial. The levels are nice too, just ranging between 3 and 8."

EagleEye and Mikan stared at each other before turning their attention to the green haired girl. She didn't seem to realize how long they'd been involved in the game already. Nor all the problems that cropped up. Furthermore, the color cards signifying different Gods and Goddesses to worship and pledge loyalty toward was mildly new information. "It's only been a day?"

Sumire laughed at the ludicrous comment. "Hardly, more like two hours at most."

Mikan felt her stomach drop. "Okay, I know this sounds weird, but have you tried to log out?"

"Why? I literally just got here. As beta testers, we're supposed to test the game out. Not chicken out. Why are you being so weird?"

The Halfling cat started to shout: " _Because we've been here for almost a week now!_ ", but EagleEye stopped her with a feathered arm quickly. He wrapped his arm around her neck and front of the face to prevent her from further yelling.

"How many different colored groups are there?" EagleEye asked Sumire with a quick smile. He hoped to get off that topic so that Mikan could cool down.

"Did you not pay attention in the tutorial at all?" He saw the exasperated sigh escape through Sumire's lips as she crossed her arms. "Fine, there are four color groups that are present in this beta test. Purple cards, Blue cards, Green cards, and Orange cards. I don't know the Blue or Orange cards Gods, but similarly they are gathering the sands of time like we all are."

As if tired of standing in front of the entry point of Bellcester Shore, Sumire yanked on Mikan's arm. Freeing her from Ruka's grasp, they stumbled over to the busy roads of Bellcester. The dock bustled with plenty of tourist activity, with plenty of souvenir shops and street vendors. Just like Mydalr, there were symbols decorated on the cobble walls of each storefront to signify which store dealt which type of goods.

Sumire pulled them into a small shop that had an item bag on the front of the wall, where they were greeted by the shop clerk. Also standing in the corner of the store happened to be three others whom Mikan and Ruka had not met. Above each of their heads had the names **TiramisuBaker** , **ChemiC12H22O11** ,and **R4DM4N**.

"Anna, Nonoko, Mochiage meet my two friends from the purple squad!"

The humanoid with bubbly pink hair with the username **TiramisuBaker** bounced forward to grasp Mikan's pawed hands. Almost like the tirade of questions Mikan bombarded Sumire with when she first saw her, she gushed to the gamer about her Switch play on her favorite Otome game. "Sumire told me that she knew RelicPetals in real life! That's really exciting! I'm Anna, or **TiramisuBaker**! I follow all your Otome gameplays! Which Otome is your all time favorite? Mine happens to be Legendary Messenger! Didn't you play that one a while back? They added a whole bunch of new patches and—" Anna gushed over Mikan like a waterfall over a Cliffside. There was a Halfling-bird girl with long blue hair who stepped in-between the two.

"Anna, you're overwhelming her." **ChemiC12H22O11** reproached her with a small smile. "Please excuse her, she's just excited to finally meet you. I'm Nonoko, or **Chemi**. The compound in my username is known for sugar! Sweet, huh?" She smiled once more, and Mikan could only bob her head as her whiskers and ears twitched in fast succession.

EagleEye approached the laidback monk of the group. He was human with hands wrapped in knuckle bands. His tourist outfit looked painfully awkward on the monk's avatar. "Nice to meet you."

"Same."

There wasn't an introduction between the two males, but the exchange of usernames above the two were enough.

Once introductions commenced Sumire touched her chin in thought. "Where on earth is Koko and Kitsuneme? Those two better not be running amok."

 **R4DM4N** scratched the back of his shaven, darkened head. "Koko said something about fighting the giant rare crab west of here. Kitsuneme went with him to find more valuables."

"Oh." EagleEye interrupted, before chuckling nervously. "We destroyed it last night."

"Good job mate!" He looked between him and Mikan. "That must have been tough with only an offensive player and a healer."

"Oh, no, we weren't alone. Natsume and Hotaru were with us as well." Mikan explained and nervously laughed. She decided to not mention the high level that crab happened to be.

Sumire sighed, shaking her head. "Why did I even bother partying up with them, especially if they were going to just bounce." She looked at her wrist console and she pulled up the quest mission.

"Did you talk with the shop keeper already?"

Mikan and EagleEye blanked out during their conversation. "Shopkeeper?"

Anna nodded, "Yeah, they introduce all of the shop information and what each place specializes in" and to prove her point she open her tutorial page on the wrist console to show her their recent help page guide. Mikan watched, but she noticed their tutorials were about three quarter sized smaller than theirs. Mikan had to scroll through at least two-three pages of tutorial help page points compared to their measly five help points on the first page.

EagleEye chuckled nervously, grasping his wrist console to hide their progress. "Oh, yeah we'll get started once Natsume and Hotaru join us."

Before the group could continue their banter, the door to the shop slammed open with an irriated black Halfling feline male and equally angry humanoid wizard entered. Behind them buzzed two new avatars who happily chirped around them.

"Who knew we'd run into **Kuroneko** and **Cool_Blue_Sky** sleeping! Utterly defenseless! If it weren't for Kitsuneme and I, the great Koko, they'd be swallowed whole by the vicious rare crab!" Dramatically Koko, a fighter who looked almost identical to his humanoid self-back in the real world, save the Hawaiian attire, recounted excitedly.

Kitsuneme ran circles around the two irritated characters, being too quick for either one to catch. Being a rogue had its advantages.

"Uh—I'd stop if I were you." Mikan started but it was too late. Kuroneko reached a pawed hand out and gripped the back of the head of Koko. The dark aura rose around him as he uttered tensely.

"If you don't want to lose your progress, I highly suggest you shut up."

Cool_Blue_Sky was under the same page, and glared openly. If Mikan had to gander a guess on how they felt, it probably was like a terrible hang over… after a long night of drinking shots of tequila and vodka. At once.

"If it isn't Kuroneko and Cool_Blue_Sky!" Sumire welcomed with her manicured hand waving them over. "Please don't damage my party members, we literally just began!"

Hotaru looked displeased but sighed, "Can we drop the usernames? The NPCs are getting uncomfortable with us using weird code names."

Anna and Nonoko looked back to the shop clerk who seemed more nervous than usual. Perhaps they were creating too much of a bother. "For a game, it's pretty sentient. I don't mind not using usernames. Could we swap contact info and messengers?"

Cool_Blue_Sky agreed, stepping forward to the girls and exchanged their group id information.

Kuroneko let go of Koko before walking over to Mikan's side. He looked tired still, maybe even groggy. "You doing alright?" Mikan asked him with a flick of her tail. He looked down to her and what seemed to be soft fluffy hair. Dropping his head sideways, he yawned into one of her cat ears. "Tired." He sleepily replied and remained by her side. If anyone nearby had seen the exchange, they would have been completely thrown off.

"Ehhhhhhh?!" Anna cried as she just realized who the black Feline halfling was. "Don't...Don't tell me..." She muttered as if she had been struck with arrows to the chest. Nonoko seemed to comfort her friend which confused Mikan more. Out of everyone in that shop, she should have been the most flustered and confused. Kuroneko _never_ used her as a pillow. Ever.

Koko gasped as he hid by Sumire. "I _knew_ it! They are an item!"

Mikan all but yelped to everyone: "We are _not_ an item!"

* * *

T.K. here! Welcome to Bellcester!

 **Wind of SilentBell** : I feel like if I answer your questions, it may reveal the plot haha-but I'm glad that you're making conjectures! I hope that you'll continue to think about how the story unfurls and how it goes from there. Mikan is one of those people, who once are discovered won't hide that part of themselves who know. She is a wonderful character to build and mold around.

 **SunBabyBoss** : Thank you very much! :)

 **RandomGuest:** Yay! I'm glad that you are enjoying the story! Persona definitely does fit that big bad role guy-he kind of reminds me of a certain character in Tales of Vesperia, but not as comical haha. I'm hoping to see more of him popping up and causing a frenzy! Riba-that was a word that describes that any partner in the relationship can swing between Uke or Seme-or that's what I gandered from my research. Hope that helps!

I'm starting some of my classes pretty soon so please be patient with my updates. I will try and upload a chapter every two weeks. :) Enjoy!


	10. Slight Deceit

**Chapter 9:**

 **Slight Deceit**

* * *

As always I do not own Gakuen Alice or it's characters. They belong to the wonderful Tachibana Higuchi-san. Now, let's get back to the action!

* * *

Once the groups had been asked to leave the shop, much to Mikan's chagrin and embarrassment, they decided to have breakfast at one of the Inns. They traveled through the docks, following a winding street and paved shore path. Along the way, they noticed several exotic and interesting boutiques selling trinkets and baubles. While they perused passively, they made note to mark the stores they'd wish to see later on. Merely five minutes into the walk, and adjacent to the Broken Sail, the local tavern, stood the Inn with favorable remarks. The inn happened to be a single story, stone walled building. Many of the windows were leaded with stained glass and had a particular nice mezzanine for resting. In the back of the building had a fairly large cellar, mostly for storage of commercial goods and grub.

Upon arrival they were greeted by a slightly overweight male halfling. He stood behind the bar counter, cleaning a few tankards left over from a previous parties meal. Despite his fervent task to clean, he remained amicable with their large party choosing to sit by the front window. All of the males started to push together three tables, while some of the girls gathered enough chairs for them all to sit comfortably. Once seated, they were given a small leaflet from a young halfling girl. Her bright brown eyes and rosy cheek complexion looked similar to the older male halfling still cleaning.

"Why thank you dearie," Anna replied as the younger girl beamed at her praise. "Could you perhaps get us some waters, that would be lovely."

And with that the little girl ran off with her next task at hand. Mikan watched the Inn Keeper look over at the little one hustling to gather them clean glasses to fill and also smiled. A short memory, just a tidbit of a flash of when she was younger with her own father. They were playing in the kitchen, where her father cooked food, her mother played as a patron, and Mikan played as the server. The memory ended just as quickly as it began as a glass slid in front of her.

"Smoked Pork, Dried sausage, Boiled Shrimp and dried onions, roasted shrimp and leeks, boiled eggs and leeks, stewed Watercress… man!" One of their loudest party members, Koko, slammed his now empty glass onto the table. The shock of the impact caused some onlookers at other tables nearby to jump and look back in fright. "Would it kill someone to make chicken and waffles! I mean, come on!"

Sumire, who happened to sit next to the loud boisterous brunette, sighed into her maincured hand before plucking up her own menu. "Koko, quite being an ass and pick something."

Anna stifled her own chuckle before smiling to the slightly fuming brunette. Kitsuneme cheered his comrade on, thinking the exact same thing.

"Can you settle down so that we don't get kicked out from another establishment… again." Belle reprimanded with her stern expression. She had never been asked to leave a store before until earlier that morning.

 **R4DM4N** , who hadn't properly introduced himself to the rest of the party, stayed quiet, enjoying his drink and looked intently to the side. He seemed to have found something that peaked his interest.

When the little girl finished delivering the last four waters out to the end of the table, she started collecting their orders with very slow, precise handwriting. Hotaru ordered dried sausage with barley bread, while Natsume ordered smoked pork and curd cheese. Mikan had been approached to order as well, and she hastily pointed to the boiled eggs and lentils option.

Fifteen minutes later, their food had been taken to the kitchen and now the parties discussed miscellaneous topics. It mostly was led by Sumire's party members while Natsume, Ruka, Mikan, and Hotaru listened. They had been able to pick up small rumors from townspeople whispering of ferocious monsters gaining grounds on the shore. In fact, Koko and Kitsune just that morning, talked with several townsfolk before leaving about the rare monstrous crab that reigned over the ocean waters.

"There wasn't any large monsters to be afraid of though." Kokoroyome replied after finishing the last of his drink. "We didn't find anything above level five. Just small piranha looking fish and octopuses."

Ruka went to stroke the bottom of his chin. He stayed deep in thought as Kitsuneme continued to talk about the crazy Octopus battle that fought. With grandeur and grace, Kitsuneme lifted his arms and hands in strong motions, hoping it would greatly impact his story. Also, he was slightly hoping to impress the girls at their table, but did not get so much as a wink his way.

Before he could pour any more affection toward them, the little steward girl had come by to slide a piping hot plate of food in front of him. Behind the young girl stood the Inn Keeper holding a majority of their food while she balanced a plate of food on her head. She walked slowly before reaching up and placing the plate in front of R4DM4N. He gave her a small smile and thanked her, which she gave an immediate flushed response.

A heavy chortle arose from what they assumed was her father, delivering the last of their food before beckoning her to his side. "Thank ye kindly fer yur pati'nce, this wee lass want'd ta welc'me ye all. Did 'er good, eh?"

Mikan nodded, smiling to the small girl. "My compliments to you and your staff sir."

"Aw shucks," he muttered, rubbing his index finger under his nose. She could see he was also appreciative of her kind words "ye all enjoy now. Le' m'know if ye need 'nything."

They finished their breakfast with little to no issue. It was only after they finished eating that something had begun in the background. **R4DM4N** , who had been watching from previous, elbowed kitsuneme to direct their attention inconspicuously to the racket being made.

The clattering of chairs alerted the rest of the inn guests of the possible scuffle about to occur between a stout older man with silver hair and blue eyes. The scale mail he wore was shined with peculiar detail, but the large bastard sword sheathed behind his back drew most of their attention. His hand rested evenly on the hilt as if to pull it out. Quarreling with this man stood a tall couple, the female dressed in exquisite clothes and numerous rings adorned on her hand had wavy brown hair with bright green eyes, and a sharp nose. Her partner dressed in plainer clothes with simple tools dangling off his belt had white long hair pulled back into a pristine low ponytail, but his dark grey eyes blazed in anger.

"Quit acting high and mighty! If I didn't know any better Hogi, I'd say you're robbing this dock of its revenue for your useless services!" The taunt had been directed to the stouter male, who huffed in indignation. His face flush, possibly from the tankards of ale he drank from early on, turned a crimson red now as he tensed.

"Oh yeah? And yet here you are checking in daily to gather your supplies. It seems like you're just as useless Eled!" In this moment, the woman stepped in with her nose held high. She glared down at the older male with disgust.

"Save the excuses, we hired you to acquire the materials we need for our art shop and you haven't fulfilled your end of the bargain. I want compensation for this perpetually terrible experience. If not, I wouldn't mind going to the dock guards." The woman gripped her hand onto Eled's arm, hoping to bring him back and also avoid a fight indoors. "I expect the materials by the end of the day. And our money back for this costly waste of time."

"Your words are wasted on this drunkard Cleo, let's just go to the guards." Eled all but hissed. He then steered his partner away from the stout man to the inn keeper. He tossed his several gold pieces to pay for the food and left without further incident.

The door to the inn slammed shut before a chorus of ringing alerted the large party sitting up front to look at their wristbands. A notification popped up notifying them of a new quest. Kokoroyome jumped at the new lead while Anna read in greater details what was needed.

The only ones who didn't seem to be reading their wrist bands happened to be Mikan's group, who awkwardly waited for some sort of loud beep or notification to pop up.

It never did.

Sumire gathered all of their attention back to her. "Alright guys, it looks like we found a good quest. Let's get started as soon as we pay for breakfast!"

Almost as if programmed, the Innkeeper came by with the bill. "Before ye take off, here's yur bill. Thank ye fer yur bus'nuss."

Natsume started to pull out his money pouch to pay for his food, but had been stopped by Belle's hand. She smiled sweetly as she explained. "Didn't you all arrive last? You probably don't have any funds yet, so don't worry we'll pay this time."

Anna also interjected, "Yeah! Before we all met at the store, we were battling all the monsters in the area for an hour or so. This area is great for grinding for money!" As soon as she finished, she immediately slapped a hand over her mouth. She didn't want to appear like she had gloated about that, and explained so afterward. "Not that you all wouldn't know! I mean, we're all beta testers!"

Mikan opened her mouth to say they were good on funds, almost a little over seven thousand gold pieces, but a swift kick underneath the table to her shin silenced her protest.

She squeaked in pain as Hotaru gave her a narrowed expression.

"Yup—no funds." Hotaru faked as she shrugged. "We'll manage somehow."

Mikan rubbed her sore shin under the table with a hand as the group with green cards started to move.

"Well, we won't bug your progress anymore. You all still have plenty of stuff to find in Bellcester before attempting to fight the monsters." Sumire said as she easily procured 90 gold pieces for the Inn keeper.

"Check out the weapons and armor store! They have rad collections!" Kitsuneme offered what he thought was the best advice he could think of.

Koko nodded in agreement. "Oh, and check out the boutiques for those beginning tasks. I think I remember Shadow saying we needed to fill out our tutorial help page a bit before getting the first quest."

 **R4DM4N** silently nodded over to Natsume and Ruka, giving them a firm acknowledgement.

"Bye!" And before Mikan and the rest could stop or warn them of possible dangers, they were gone in the blink of an eye.

"And they're gone." Hotaru remarked as she tapped her finger on the oak table. The little girl had started to come and collect their dirty dishes around them.

"Should we have told them about the—you know—everything?" Mikan asked with concern looking out the window at how happy the six green card players were.

Ruka crossed his arms, leaning back in his chair.

"No, I don't think we should. I'd hate to make a panic in the middle of town full of potential game players without fully understanding what is going on. Maybe this is only happening to our group? And if so, maybe we can see if we could alert VRGE. I mean, our situation could be nothing more than a bug."

"Okay, but that doesn't explain that Persona person." Hotaru added, she played with her tankard of water in her hand. "That thing he did to Hyuuga is definitely not something I would consider a game bug."

Natsume remembered the feeling. He could recall the pained prickles of agony trickling out from his body as the sand got sucked out from his hour glass. "Persona couldn't be a bug in the program. He seemed too real."

"Did'ja say Persona?" Another voice, gruff, and familiar from earlier perked up beside the four. Looking up, the group came face to face with that same stout, red-faced man who possessed the Bastard sword.

"What would that name mean to you stranger?" Hotaru asked with a pointed gaze. She peered with keen eyes at the drunken man who set up their friends latest quest for who knew what.

"Ohh terrible things lass—I reckon he's long gone now—but they say he's a troublesome fella." With the mention of his possible presence, all four straightened up. A tinge of fear seeped down Mikan's spine as she remembered their first encounter now.

"He was here old man?" Natsume pandered for any type of response, and was given one. The older man huffed at the nickname.

"Hogi's the name, halfling. Get it right."

Ruka interrupted, hoping to get the man back on track. "You mentioned that he's long gone now? Do you know what his business was?" The blonde waited as the older man thought, he quirked his head up to look up at the ceiling.

"I don't really remember, but McKinnon might know. She's a mystic who has a small makeshift shop down the winding road. Can't miss her, she's old and has a giant clear orb."

Deciding it best to leave, the four thanked him for his intel and went to scour the streets for this McKinnon.

* * *

Not far down the winding road did they come across an older woman fitting the short description Hogi had given them. She had a lean, thin body, crouched Indian style on a fluffed carpet sitting idly on the cement. Her cracked, rough brown hands were circling over a giant clear orb sitting on the pillow between her legs. With her head bent down, the party could gather her short, white wavy hair dried from the humidity, and one brown eye. The other, her right eye, had been covered by what seemed to be a makeshift eyepatch. Huffing under her breath, she muttered as she focused his attention on the orb below.

Mikan, attentively approaching the older woman, attempted to start a conversation with her, but was startled when the woman's bony hand instantly moved. Her wrist was ensnared by the woman's sudden grasp, and Mikan slightly jumped in fright. "Ahhhh—yes, I've been waiting." The older woman crooned before lifting her head up for the group to see. Her sharp, but slightly pockmarked face greeted them as she dragged the Feline halfling down in front of the Mystic.

"Come Halfling child, come! I do not bite." She released Mikan and then turned back to her orb. "Ahhhh yes—I see it. Your future is quite—spectacular." The slight pause in her assessment caused Mikan some cause for concern.

"Enough old hag." Natsume, tired of seeing Mikan being dragged into everything, yanked the girl back up by her forearm. "Are you McKinnon or not?"

Hotaru stood on guard as Ruka tensed.

"Yes, I am." She slowly replied, looking up at each and everyone one of them. Her brown aged eyes trained equally on each before smiling a crooked, yellow toothed smile. "What can this old hag do for you then Halfing boy?"

Natsume ignored the quip, "Answer, did you meet someone by the name of Persona?"

The old woman crackled, heaving some heavy breaths in between her laugh. "No, I don't know the name."

"That's odd" Hotaru narrowed her eyes, "a man named Hogi stated you did meet him."

As if calling her out on her lie, she heavily breathed some shaky breaths. Though not deterred, she continued as if she always had spoken the truth. "I did meet him then, I did. Interesting fellow, wanted to know more about the shrine."

Ruka jumped at the opportunity hoping the old lady wouldn't lie again. "Shrine? What shrine are you talking about?"

The old mystic yawned into her rough skinned hand. "Who said anything about a shrine? I don't know of any shrines." She made it very apparent with her other free hand by rubbing her index finger and thumb up and down. If she was going to tell the truth, she was going to need some gold.

Natsume pulled out two gold coins and dropped them unceremoniously onto her carpet. "Here's two to start, and if I like your answers old hag, I'll give you three more."

She greedily accepted the gold coins and cackled. "Yes, yes, yes, I do remember there being a shrine now. The Shrine of Istishia. But terrible things have come from within the shrine." She tsk'ed as if upset by the whole ordeal. "Couldn't seal the beasts in, I had t' stay away. Misfortune was on my side that day when I ran into that man. Bad man, he interrupted my cleansing ritual and made the shrine into a dilapidated old fixture."

A loud beep popped up from their wrists as a new notification popped up on their screen. Ignoring it for now, Mikan knelt by the old woman. She gazed silently at her, gauging her for truthfulness.

"The beasts flow out still, more powerful as they come. I am unable to do the deed—but you!" McKinnon snapped her attention back to her. "I sense a great power within you. You can seal the beasts once and for all. Save the shrine. I beg you." She then pulls out a slip of parchment rolled and tied together with a twine rope.

Natsume tossed three more coins at the old woman as Mikan accepted the parchment with some concern.

"This purification ritual will only work for Clerics and Mystics. You know what you must do. Don't you?"

Hotaru grabbed Mikan by the arm and they immediately left the heavily breathing woman. As soon as they were out of earshot of her, did they stop and examine the parchment and their notification.

* * *

 **Main Quest 2: Shrine of Istishia**

 **Your party has met with the mystic Kittra McKinnon. Eerily, she has informed you all of the troubles that have been ongoing within the Shrine of Istishia after Persona had tampered within. She mentioned further that monsters have been continually getting stronger, and the only way to stop the fleet of monsters is to purify the irregularity that has affected the once beautiful shrine. Giving a purification ritual over to their Cleric, McKinnon begs them to clear the shrine of its evils and stop the monsters from pouring out into the shores of Bellcester.**

* * *

 **Subquest: Bellcester Shore**

 **You've learned from Hogi that he is lacking in materials for his customers Cleo and Eled. He desperately needs five crab claws, several packs of crab and shark brains, about 20 reef shark teeth, and a dorsal fin of a reef shark.**

* * *

 **Subquest: Bellcester Shore 2**

 **The Innkeeper is in need of several ingredients to update his menu for his customers. He wants to include pineapple, coconut, papaya, plantains, and mangoes into his menu but is not sure on how. Inquire further with the Inn keeper to help him create a brand new menu.**

* * *

The four read through all of the notifications and wondered why it decided to wait until now to deliver all of their quests. "No use in wasting valuable time." Hotaru remarked as she gauged the time. Making an educated guess, they all figured it was around ten or eleven in the morning.

"We should gather supplies." Ruka countered. "We don't have too many potions left, and our other items in inventory should be saved for future lunch or dinner preparations."

Natsume agreed.

"Why don't we go hit the main street then? We should be able to gather the items in that general area." Mikan offered to the group, and they hurriedly went.

* * *

The purchasing of the items happened without any issue. While the boys went to buy their items, both Mikan and Hotaru entered another shop full of trinkets and baubles. Inside they stumbled upon a group of four others chatting in the background, but it didn't seem too important in Mikan's mind. It seemed like they were mercenaries from somewhere far. But again, she didn't pay it that much attention. Mikan asked simple questions to the clerk, and gathered small bits of information where she could. Nothing of real value or interest popped up in their tiny quest for potions.

Hotaru checked their group funds after they met back up in the main square, and they managed to only spend 550 gold pieces. Ruka and Natsume found two greater healing potions and bartered down the seller to buy two greater potions to get one common healing potion for free. Then they decided to buy five more of the common healing potions to have as back up.

It appeared luck was on their side as the owner of the apothecary shop loved anything to deal with animals. Seeing both Natsume, as a Feline halfling, and Ruka, a Eagle-Bird Hafling all but swooned at the sight.

"Good job procuring the goods." Hotaru gleamed with excitement as she stared at the red liquid inside the glass bottles. Whenever they were shaken, a slight sparkle of dark red enveloped in the middle of the bottle. The magical enchantment definitely seemed to be there.

But Mikan stood silently between the party, quizzically tapping her clawed finger to her chin. Something seemed to have escaped her, and she felt it was something they desperately needed.

"We should be ready for this shrine, let's head out." Natsume collected their belongings and that's when Mikan yelped in surprise. She now remembered what they were missing.

"We forgot to ask that Mystic about _where_ this shrine was located! How are we going to find it?!" Mikan explained with great haste. She almost made a bee-line back to where they had found the Mystic, but Hotaru grabbed her wrist.

"I don't trust her to give us valuable information. Let's just check with the guards. They won't lie without too much reason." The black haired sorcerer replied and Mikan calmed down.

"Alright, alright let's go!"

Asking around, they finally came upon two guards chatting by the front entrance. The short partner had a scruffy rustic colored beard, and the other stood a head taller than his partner. His own mustache was a sight to behold as the blonde hairs curled into delicate curled tips on the side of his face.

The group looked between each other before Natsume shoved Mikan ahead to the guards. "You do something useful for once." He smirked, and she hissed at him in response.

"Don't push me," And with a slight scream, she instantly face planted into the ground. Both of the guards stopped mid-speech before looking at the fallen auburn.

"You alright miss?" The one with the blonde hair asked, and Mikan lifted her face up. The dirt that speckled her cheeks covered the redness she knew was there.

"Uh—yeah, lost my balance for a bit." She nervously chuckled before looking back to her party. "We were on our way to find a shrine. Would you happen to know where one is?"

The scruffy beard guard placed both his hand on the belt of his breeches. "Yeah, the Shrine of Schiltia is about a two days trip from here, past the mountains."

Mikan's arm was grasped with firm hands from the taller guard as he helped hoist her back up to her feet. "Thank you," she replied, "but we're actually looking for another one. Uh—the Shrine of Istishia? I believe that is it."

At the mention of Istishia both the guards froze. She could see the innate fear in their eyes as they gathered their wits.

"Istishia… lass, you'd best avoid it if you can. That shrine became a hellhole about several weeks ago. Parishioners went missing, guards were found slain, monsters have been streaming out endlessly for days. You'll have to wait until they've been cleared out. Some mercenaries are on their way, so-" he flicked his hand up and down to the auburn indicating she head back into town.

Hotaru took this opportunity to step in with a slight smile to her porcelain expression. "Sir, happen to be those very mercenaries you speak of. Mikan, show him the blessing scroll."

Surprised by the sudden assistance, Mikan pulled out the scroll. She didn't unravel it, but she did handle it gently. The guards seemed skeptical of this response, but Hotaru cleverly went on. "We are hired mercenaries from Heliene. Sir Tarmik sent us to resolve the monster exploitations around Bellcester Shore. Won't you grant us a map or suggestions to aid our endeavors?"

Mikan would have asked her about that random place and name drop, but the guards immediately straightened up. "Sir Tarmik sent you? I could have sworn the envoy said another three days."

Natsume popped in right next to Mikan. "We arrived earlier than expected." Ruka nodded.

Both the guards perceived them intently, before the shorter one pulled out a piece of parchment from his utility belt. He looked at the written envoy and then back up to the four. "Sir Tarmik did say he was sending four individuals. They definitely have a cleric and a fighter with them."

The other guard didn't bother with the descriptions anymore. It seemed to fit the bill in his book. Shuffling through his knapsack, he produced several items. One happened to be a map of the area, as well as some items for exploring the shrine. "Glad to know you're not imposters. We have been getting plenty of those types recently." He begrudged, and then happily handed the items to Hotaru.

"Thank you all for kindly taking care of the problem, we're really grateful for Sir Tarmik to help us with this unsettling issue."

Hotaru smiled, accepting the items with grace. "Yes, we will be sure to send him your regards as well."

"Time is short, let's move." Natsume replied, and hurriedly moved their group forward. Mikan was almost dragged away by an excited Ruka who held up his finger to his lips.

"Hurry before they realize it's not really us." He whispered into her cat ear.

All Mikan wanted to know is how that even worked. Who was this Tarmik person, and how did Hotaru know about that city? They were only there for a day!

They sprinted into the sands of the shore before Mikan looked over her shoulder. She saw four more individuals approach the guards they had just been talking to, and the guards became more aggressive. Instead of their jovial stances from before, they seemed suspicious of the four new people talking to them.

"Mikan, do you remember those four from before?" Hotaru yelled ahead to the running auburn. "They are the real mercenaries. So we better make like a tree and leave."

Natsume shook his head at the subtle deceit. "Good thing you picked up that information. It looks like Mikan wasn't able to understand."

Mikan frowned before recalling the four people talking in the background. "Ahhhhhh!" She yelled out as they continued their sprint. "You overheard them in the baubles shop! But it didn't sound interesting at all to me!"

Ruka sighed, but was glad they got away without getting caught. Too bad the true mercenaries were being handcuffed by the guards.

"Just keep running, don't look back!" Hotaru called, and they made their way to the shrine.

* * *

 _ **Dried Sausage and Barley Bread**_

 _ **A seasoned, plain dish with dried sausage and chewy barley bread**_

 _ **+5 Dextrity bonus for 4 hours**_

* * *

 _ **T.K. here!**_

 ** _Wow, thank you so much for reading this far! This marks our ninth chapter of Origin! I'll probably be adding little descriptions of food and bonuses to the end of chapters if I don't have time to place them into the story. I think it's cool to know what effects certain items do after all! And Persona has been here... what could happen? Dun dun dunnnnnn Sumire and company seem pretty excited for their quest, hopefully they do well :)_**

 ** _Some have asked about Tsubasa, well-lets just say he's in the works. We're working toward him, so we're getting there haha._**

 ** _I enjoy reading each and every one of your reviews! They mean the world to me! Thank you and I'll hope to see you next chapter!_**


End file.
